I Knew I Forgot Something….

So here's the next chapter. It's a bit jumpy, but I wanted the effect it gave me of jumping places and characters and hopefully it works and you all like it. One of these days I'll write a longer chapter… When they get to Hogwarts, I promise! And don't worry, I plan to skip through a fair bit of their childhood, just giving enough to establish personalities and explore changes in the adult characters, bit more background on Paradox and Death as well.

ANYWAY… I don't own Harry Potter, if I did there would be a lot more chaos and Weasley twins… And time travel… And less deaths… Thank you J.K Rowling for writing Harry Potter. It is my childhood. And now I get to mess around with it!

Sirius had barely slept since Halloween and was now running purely on pepper-up potions and coffee. After storming into Amelia Bones' office and ranting about Harry vanishing and Wormtail having him everything was a bit of a blur. He vaguely remembered a lot of questions, possibly with Veritaserum, then a huge amount of movement and planning as all the Magical Law Enforcement officers who weren't out rounding up Death Eaters searched for Harry Potter and Peter Pettigrew. So far, there was no sign of either of them and Sirius was nearing his breaking point.

'Where are they? Please, Harry, hold on! I'll find you pup, I promise. Where ever you are, I will rescue you and no one will ever hurt you again. I'll kill them first…'

Meanwhile, in a cottage up in Scotland, Paradox suddenly shot upright in bed before flinging herself across the room at the door. Once she'd succeeded in wrenching the door open she dove down the hallway to her brother's room and proceeded to burst in while shouting;

"I knew I bloody forgot something! Wake UP! I forgot about the Longbottoms and Sirius! He'll be tearing his hair out by now! Get up, get UP!"

"Whuzzat?"

Mumbled Death as he blinked blearily up at his frantic twin who frantically started hurling clothes at him.

"Hurry! The Longbottom attack is tonight! I may have not been allowed to save the Potters but I'll be damned if I don't manage to save the Longbottoms! I mean, you've SEEN how his Gran raises him! Come on, get UP!"

With this final statement she waved a hasty arm at herself to change her own clothes before bodily throwing her unwilling twin from the bed.

"Alright, ALRIGHT! Are you forgetting that you're the Goddess of bloody TIME TRAVEL?!"

This statement seemed to make it's way through the panic hazing Paradox's mind and made her pause in her frantic movements, her face morphing to a slightly guilty expression.

"Oops?"

She tried, smiling nervously up at him. At this he sighed,

"It's ok… I'm up now so we can get going. To the Longbottoms, then."

And with that they disappeared away to conduct their latest rescue mission.

When they arrived it was to find Bellatrix and Rudolphus cursing Alice while Rabastian restrained Frank. Barty however, was huddled in a corner looking horrified, Neville held tightly in his arms. Paradox took in the scene with a glance and sighed. Looks like she'd be receiving another houseguest. Damn her soft heart! Then she remembered the screaming woman she was here to save and with a casual wave of her arm, she'd stunned all three Lestranges and released Frank from Rabastians spell. As soon as he could move, Frank was sprinting across the room to check on Alice. Paradox knew she would never recover complete control of her outer nerves, but it was better than what could have happened. Now to give Neville over to his parents and see what could be done about Barty. She sighed resignedly as she moved towards Barty's corner, for a God, she really did have an obsession with saving everyone.

"Barty? Can I take Neville to give back to his parents and then I can see about helping you."

His horror filled eyes locked on hers and she could see he was shaking.

"They said they wouldn't hurt them! They promised. Th-they've all been so nice to me. Only my mother's ever been as nice as that to me before. W-why would they do this? I-I didn't want to do it earlier, why would they break in if they just want to talk?! And I don't remember getting here, just being here! Please help me. This happened before and then the Dark Mark appeared on my arm. They promised it was just to protect me from their other friends, that they might try to attack me if I didn't have it! W-w-why? Why did this have to happen?"

Paradox simply sighed before prising Neville from his tight grip, Neville was wailing loudly and needed a parent to calm him. She then swiftly passed him over to Death who then turned sharply to carry him to his parents and explain what had happened with Barty. As soon as Neville was safely deposited in her brothers arms, Paradox pulled Barty into her arms and set about soothing and shushing the shaking man who was barely out of his teenage years. This was yet another person whom she couldn't leave to succumb to insanity or in this ones case, maniacal devotion. No one seemed to realise how utterly Barty's mind had been shattered and warped by his time under the Imperius curse until very little of the real Barty Crouch Jr. was left.

"Thank you for protecting Neville, Barty."

Alice whispered hoarsely from across the room. Barty's head whipped up in shock before he buried it deeper against Paradox's shoulder while whispering

"I'm sorry" over and over again to himself.

"And thank you, for saving us, whoever you two are."

Paradox grinned at that.

"Glad to help. I'm Pandora Serena Wild-Black. That menace standing over there with you would be my twin brother, Mort Lono Wild-Black. We're cousins of Sirius' from Australia, only just moved here a month ago to help out where we could." Now, if you'll excuse me, I've left my adoptive sons alone in the house and I wouldn't put it past them to wake up and destroy the house while we're away."

She actually managed to make Alice laugh at that comment.

"Alright, you'd better get home, we should probably go to St. Mungos anyway. Please owl us soon though, I'd like to get to know my rescuers."

Paradox grinned at her.

"Oh, I'm sure I will. Our sons are the same age after all. Mort, lets head back."

And with that, Paradox whisked Barty away with her back to her house. She really had to sort her collecting strays issue. It always happened.

Once home, she led Barty to the guest room, (previously her brothers) and fed him a dreamless sleep potion she had bought the other day before heading downstairs. She had a letter to write. Oh… And a sofa to transfigure into a bed. There she went forgetting things again.

Early the next morning, Sirius was downing his latest round of pepper-ups and coffee when a letter appeared with a flash before falling on the table in front of him. It was a clear sign of how exhausted he truly was that he didn't bother checking for any hexes, curses or jinxes. He simply opened it and started to read…

Dear cousin Sirius,

I should have written this letter days ago, however, time completely escaped both my brother and me. Before I go any further, I'd better introduce myself. My name is Pandora Wild-Black, the daughter of Simeon Black. Me and my twin brother were both born with magic and when dad died we decided to seek out the only member of the Black family that Simeon talked about frequently. You.

We've been here searching for the past month, rounding up Death Eaters as we went. We always seemed to miss you though… This is when the story gets complicated.

On Halloween, we were in Godric's Hollow, just wandering around when a house seemed to appear out of nowhere and we could hear screaming. Naturally we rushed towards whatever was happening as quickly as possible. We found James Potter dead in the hallway (We knew what he looked like as we'd been told he was your best friend and could help us find you). However, we could still hear the shouting and screaming coming from upstairs. Halfway up the stairs the screaming stopped and the next minute the house was rocked with an explosion. We raced up the stairs and into the room to find a dead woman and a baby crying in a cot, clearly injured. We knew this had to be Harry, your Godson. We had no idea who was in the area, or who would be the first to arrive.

All we knew was that the structure wasn't safe, there were possibly Death Eaters in the area and Harry was injured in some way. Plus, as your Godson, he's family as far as we're concerned. So we took him with us. I specialise in obscure magic and magical anomalies, and my brother specialises in healing. Still it took us the two days to correct the damage done, and in all the chaos I completely forgot that you were probably tearing your hair out with worry. I apologise profusely and will come to collect you to meet your Godson tomorrow morning at noon as well as to further explain the events that transpired.

Yours sincerely,

Pandora Serena Wild-Black

Sirius could only stare at the letter blankly for a few moments after he'd read it. His Godson was safe. His Godson was with his distant cousins from bloody Australia. His Godson was safe and his cousins had healed him. Heaving a huge sigh of relief, Sirius put his head down on the table and finally fell asleep, a contented smile on his face. He would see Harry tomorrow.

A/N I hope everyone likes what I did with Barty Crouch Jr. I always found the changes in him since his trial incredibly sad and wanted a way to reason how he went from this terrified child that seemed unable to curse anyone and so very, very confused to this clearly insane and maniacally devoted Death Eater. My answer? A mixture of manipulation and carefully applied Imperius.