First Times and Second Chances

Chapter Two: Same faces, Different Time

"Are you hungry, Larry?"

"Harry."

"Sorry. Harry?"

Harry found himself seated at the head of a kitchen table with five anxious onlookers. Well, four anxious onlookers and one very distressed father. Though Harry got the impression it was more over the fact that he had lost her than it was over seeing his "son." There was only one woman in the house as far as Harry could tell. He thought he had heard Sirius call her "Meri" but he wasn't certain. She looked oddly like his father, except for her eyes. They were a startling blue instead of the muddy hazel. She has been the most accommodating out of all of them. He realized she was waiting for his answer about wanting food.

"Uh, no, thank you."

She nodded and sat down next to Peter Pettigrew who looked so different from the Peter Pettigrew that Harry knew. This man wasn't the small, balding, rat faced man that Harry had come to know as the betrayer of his parents. This Peter was boarding on the chunky side, filling out his sharp featured face and his hair was a blonde color that was cut short and neat. He was dressed nicely, much like Uncle Vernon liked to dress on holiday and his nervous ticks were non-existent.

Sirius looked almost the same as he had in Penseive. Tall, broad shouldered with shoulder length black hair that fell gracefully in front of a face that had never been touched by Azkaban. He was dressed like a rock and roll singer with leather jacket, ripped jeans and collared shirt with the first three buttons undone. Sirius was still the epitome of cool.

Remus was completely different though. He hadn't spoken at all since Harry first laid eyes on him and he regarded Harry with a very cool and aloof expression Harry had never seen on the man's face before. He was still prematurely gray with lines of wear etched into his face and patches on his clothes but there was a resigned weariness to his posture. And if Harry didn't know any better, he could have sworn he saw bitterness behind the once sparkling blue eyes.

And his father refused to even look at him.

"So," Meri spoke up when no one else did, "Where did you say were from?"

"I don't know."

"Where were you before you ended up in the room upstairs?" Sirius asked.

"I was at Godric's Hollow."

"But this is Godric's Hollow," Peter said as pandemonium broke out around the table.

"Don't tell him that!"

"They'll be sure to find us now."

"We don't know who he is!"

"Stop." The one word was spoken so softly that it amazed Harry that the other four had even heard it. His father slowly turned his head and stared at Harry. Both of them were seated at opposite ends of the table so they had a straight on view of each other. Harry merely waited for James to speak.

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

A bunch of looks were exchanged around the table but Harry ignored them.

"What were you doing before you ended up in the room upstairs?" James asked.

"Like I said before," Harry started, "I was at Godric's Hollow. Only it was just rubble. I had gone there to try to find answers about what happened the night..."

"Go on." Meri said.

"The night that you and my mother were murdered."

Once again his father's face twitched into a half wince before falling back into it normal state. "And then what?"

"Then, my two best friends showed up. They wanted to make sure that I was alright. While we were there looking through the rubble, a group of Death Eaters that had followed them there, attacked us."

"Death Eaters," Sirius practical spit out the word.

"Hermione, one of my friends, had a time turner and suggested I use it to go back two hours and stop her and Ron, my other friend, from meeting me at Godric's Hollow. So I used it but when I did the Death Eater's had found our hiding place and used the Avada Kedavera curse on us. That's the last thing I remember."

Everyone looked thoughtful, trying to figure out what had happened. Harry was at loss. Two of these people seated around the table were dead, one he didn't know, and the other two were very much alive. He couldn't be dead. He wasn't in his "world" so to speak.

"It might be possible," Meri spoke up, "That he jumped dimensions."

"This isn't Star Trek, Meri." James answered sharply.

"No, no, listen." She practically jumped out of her seat and started pacing. "He said he was hit the Avada Kedavera curse, right? Well, if he was in the middle of going back in time with the use of a Time Turner and was hit with a killing curse then it's possible he got knock out of his time and into ours."

Sirius leaned back in his chair. "I'm not sure. I have to go with James, it does sound like something out of a science fiction novel."

Meri threw herself back into the chair and leaned close to Harry. "Tell us about where you came from."

Harry shrugged. "Like what?"

"Did you go to school?"

"Yes, at Hogwarts."

Meri nodded triumphantly. "Hogwarts was destroyed in 1983. Tell us about the people you knew. Your friends, for example."

"Well, there's Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley."

Meri turned to the others. "Ron Weasley?"

Sirius dropped the chair onto all its legs with a loud thump. "I don't remember there being a Ron Weasley, but Arthur and Molly and their kids, Bill, Charlie, Percy and the twins were around."

"Are they still around?" Harry asked, trying not to think of a world without Ron and Ginny.

Peter shook his head. "Not all of them. The twins are still alive and there's rumors their mother is but everyone else is gone."

Harry swallowed forcefully and pushed back the tears that threatened to fall. He just kept naming names and listened to the various voices tell him the fate of his friends and mentors.

"Dumbledore."

"Dead."

"McMonagall."

"Dead."

"Hagrid."

"Missing."

"Mad Eye Moody."

"Dead."

"Tonks."

"Alive."

"Shaklebolt."

"Alive."

"Alice and Frank Longbottom."

"Missing. Their son is dead."

"Fudge."

No one answered him so he elaborated. "He was the Minster of Magic, but Rufus Scrimgeour is the current one."

"Well that explains it," Remus spoke up. "The Ministry's been gone for twenty years."

"Then who runs the magical world?" Harry asked.

"Who else?" Remus answered, his voice laced with bitterness. "Voldermort and all his followers."

Harry felt his mouth go dry. "Voldermort is ruling the magical world?"

"I'm afraid so," Meri answered. She motioned around the table. "Except for those who are missing or still alive in hiding, we are all that stand between Voldermort and muggles."

"What about Severus Snape?" Harry asked, wondering what this version of Snape was like. No sooner had the name been out of Harry's mouth then his father's hand came down loudly on the table. The noise startled everyone but James had left the table and retreated upstairs where they heard a door slam. Everyone looked very uneasy but Meri continued.

"Snape is Voldermort's right hand man. He's also the one who turned Lily over to Voldermort. We thought-" Meri's voice cracked and she quickly looked away from Harry.

Sirius cleared his throat. "We thought that he was on our side. He offered to act as a spy because his close school friend, Lucius Malfoy vouched for Snape's allegiance to Voldermort. Snape told us he could pass information to us from Voldermort's camp. When Voldermort figured out something wasn't right, he demanded that Snape prove his allegiance or die. The proof was handing over Lily Potter."

"I think that's enough for tonight," Meri spoke up. "I'll do more research though, but I think it's best to assume that you got yourself knocked into another timeline. If it's possible, then maybe there's a way to get you back home. I think we all need a good night's sleep on it though."

Harry followed her lead and stood up from the table as the three men followed suit. Peter gave him a half nod and brief smile before leaving the room. Remus didn't even look at him. Meri turned to Sirius who was still standing by his chair.

"Sirius, do you think you could share your room with Harry?"

"Absolutely," he nodded with a big grin.

Meri nodded. "Good. I'll go try to talk to James then."

Harry looked up at the woman and was surprised to find her slightly taller than himself. "Who are you exactly?"

She laughed briefly. "I'm sorry. I'm Meriam Potter, I'm James' younger sister."

Harry nodded, making a mental note to look for his unknown aunt when he returned to his world. If he ever returned. He followed Sirius out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Half way up, Sirius turned around and smiled at him.

"So, what am I like in your world?"

"You're, uh, dead, actually."

"Uh," Sirius turned back around. "Well, that's depressing. How did I die? Did I go down fighting?"

"Kind of," Harry tried to push the image of Sirius falling through the veil out of his mind but it was something that would haunt him forever. "You fell through a veil in the Department of Mysteries."

Sirius stopped by his bedroom door and gave Harry a shocked look. "I fell through a mysterious veil?"

"Yeah."

Sirius opened the door and stepped through. "Well that's just lame."