Chapter 16: A Day of Many Headaches

Sirius was sitting in the Three Broomsticks with Andromeda and Ted for a drink after their work. They had come here instead of the Leaky because the after-work crowd didn't normally bother to come so far north, and the rush was much more mild. They had been able to get food and drinks with a minimal wait, and were currently busy enjoying their servings of the day's special and a butterbeer. It was one of the first nice days of Spring, though this far north in Scotland, that mostly amounted to sun and temperatures over freezing. For once, they weren't talking about the future and their coming problems, or the past and their regrets.

"So how long until you think Harry will put a ring on it?" Sirius asked after finishing his shepherd's pie, a smirk on his face and mischief dancing in his eyes. Andromeda rolled her eyes, but cocked her head to the side as she gave the question thought. Ted ate his last mouthful, but sitting back and raising his head to look at the ceiling, not wishing to think of such things.

"Well, I know from Nymphadora as recently as last week that they've not gone all the way…" Andromeda mused, Ted cringing despite the good news, at least from his perspective. It was Sirius's turn to roll his eyes.

"Yes, but according to McGonagall, not for lack of trying!" Ted griped - he had not been happy about that letter home, while Sirius had received a matching missive at the same time and had laughed and cheered Harry on. It had only been Andromeda's timely injunction that had prevented him from getting hexed by the irate father.

"I honestly don't know what's taking them so long. I look at them and see the same sort of love as James and Lily, or you two have." Sirius sighed. Honestly, he was sometimes a bit miffed that he didn't have someone that close. But he lived vicariously through Harry, though. Maybe he should ask Amelia out again - she knew the truth, and while she rejected his advances when he was an auror because he had been five years her junior, maybe now that he didn't report to her and was older, she'd accept.

"That's what I'm afraid of." Ted sighed, slumping forward. Andromeda rubbed his back, her focus completely on her husband. "We knew she wanted to be an auror, and despite our complaints, we never expected her to do anything else. But as much as I like the boy, I wish she would keep a bit of distance until this is all over with." Sirius grunted, knowing there was little point in wishing their children could avoid the war. He would fight it himself, but Harry could do things with magic that he simply couldn't. He had an innate sense of how to bend magic to his will, less the academic knowledge of Lily or Hermione, though he was rapidly developing that as well. There had been glimpses of his potential before coming back, like driving off over a hundred dementors with a single patronus, or his perfect synergy with a broom. Now that he no longer felt the need to hold back, that people encouraged him to do well, he was realizing that potential and expanding on it.

Andromeda harrumphed, not happy and still not accepting of the need for the kids to fight. The timeline needed to be protected, against all her instincts as a mother, but beyond that, she still was trying to think of a way to end the war before it really kicked off, ending things immediately after Harry and Sirius fell through the veil. The conversation died there, none of them thinking about the initial question anymore, the mood spoiled.

Spectre was walking down the main street of Hogsmeade, ignoring the side glances and blatant staring thrown their way by the residents. They were clearly here on Department of mysteries business, given their raised hood and active identity hiding measures. Their wand was poked out of their sleeve, not even their hand visible, as they monitored the results of their scan. The grey-robed individual was yet again looking for signs of temporal magic, and thankfully the background levels were substantially lower here than in the depths of the Ministry of Magic.

There were relatively constant, but degraded fluctuations, leading Spectre to believe that at least one of the temporally displaced individuals was visiting here, even if they weren't here now. It was getting long enough from the event that Spectre was beginning to doubt the efficacy of detecting time magic, the traces on even the travelers themselves would be pretty hard to pick up now. They were starting to wonder if the travelers were Hogwarts students - which would complicate things, as it meant that Dumbledore was likely granting them sanctuary. It did bode well for the likelihood that they weren't going to start slaughtering innocents.

The trio of adults left the Three Broomsticks, shivering as they stepped out into the cold air. Ted was about to apparate home, but Andromeda caught his arm. Ted and Sirius gave her confused looks, but followed her gaze forward to an Unspeakable walking through town, wand out.

"I think I'd like to go for a short walk, Ted." The two men nodded, and walked with her, keeping pace with the Unspeakable.

"Are we going to visit Potter Twr? I thought the plan was for over easter break." Ted asked, trying to make conversation. Sirius nodded as Andromeda shushed him, her husband really was not cut out for field work - really, picking that topic as they tried to not be noticed? They continued toward the figure, even as they stopped, and seemed to sigh. Suddenly, the unspeakable turned and began walking back towards them. Andromeda's eyes widened slightly as she realized who this was - or at least, which agent. She didn't know who Spectre was outside of work. As the group neared them, she recognized the spell the greycloak was using - it picked up on what kinds of magic were and had been active nearby. She mentally panicked, though her face remained impassive. Any time magic on "Phineas" would be worth mentioning and investigating, even if that wasn't what Spectre was actually out here looking for.

Sirius was struggling with a growing headache, a frown growing as it seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He brought his hand up to massage the bridge of his nose, not noticing how the motion drew the unspeakable's attention. Just before they drew up to them, though, Andromeda cast a tempus and feigned surprise at the time, demanding they all apparate back home. Sirius raised an eyebrow, but followed her instructions just as the unspeakable's wand began reporting a small amount of time magic.

Spectre stood in the street, ignoring the cold as they thought. A tempus would cause a small amount of time magic, but a man suffering a headache was actually a symptom of a time traveler deviating from their path. Spectre slowly lowered their wand and thought. He hadn't recognized any of the trio, but he could revisit their faces later in a pensieve.

Andromeda was already pacing through the kitchen when the two men stepped into the room.

"I should have known the DoM would be looking into this, but I had hoped they hadn't picked up on the time magic given that there had been no departmental memo or something. Our whole department does have a directive to stop time travelers, as we've had a few pretty bad dark lords who actually were from the future." Sirius sat heavily at the kitchen table.

"And it's even worse - That's Spectre, Croaker's personal wetwork operative. I don't know much about them, beyond that they don't have a department and have no listed projects."

"Should we go to Dumbledore?" Ted asked, worrying as he clenched the back of a kitchen chair.

"We have to." Andromeda sat heavily. "We'll either need to convince Croaker to call off Spectre, or somehow end the investigation."

"Or kill this Spectre." Sirius suggested. "Before they can talk to Croaker."

Andromeda let out a manic laugh. "Sure! Just kill the bloodiest assassin the magical government currently has."

Harry groggily rolled out of his four-poster bed, regretting the firewhiskey he had shared with a couple of the Hufflepuff blokes he was on friendly terms with - not friends, really, but decent enough to joke with and talk about inconsequential things. One of them - Harry wasn't sure who - had managed to sneak a couple bottles of Firewhiskey into the dorm, and the group of them had drunk all of it the previous night. He had fallen into bed still wearing his trousers, and found himself this morning late for breakfast, with a splitting headache and still a little tipsy. He struggled to get dressed, already dreading Dora's teasing. Harry also had double potions first thing, which would be awful. At least Snape kept the room rather dim - not good for brewing potions in, but it would hurt his head less. Snape had been rather weird, recently, and it was starting to irk Harry. Dora had noticed it too - instead of just being the normal, acerbic asshole he was, unfit to teach children and all that, Snape was sitting quietly, just staring. It was unsettling.

Dressed and with a few freshening charms cast, Harry squinted his way down to the great hall, a throbbing behind his eyes and in his temples distracting him. After nearly stepping through the trick stair and stubbing his toe, Harry finally managed to sit heavily next to Dora, who only smirked at him.

"Enjoying yourself?" She asked as Harry set about gathering food to his plate.

"Shut up." Was his only rejoinder as he began to shovel the greasiest breakfast meats and most carb-dense foods into his mouth. She rolled her eyes with a grin and went back to speaking to her friends. Harry tentatively looked around, only seeing one other of the 'puff sixth year boys down at breakfast. Not eating after that would be a mistake, he thought, unless they planned on just not going to class and sleeping it off. Harry looked up to the head table and saw a particularly disapproving frown on Flitwick's face. He would pay for it during the next training session, he was sure. Snape was also looking at him, staring again. Harry didn't know what was up with the potions master, the man's face gave away nothing. It was unnerving.

Eventually the food disappeared and the bell rang, signaling for the stragglers to finally get up and head to their classes. The head table emptied behind them, a few Ravenclaws conversing with the professor of their first class. Harry trudged down to the dungeon with a far-too-chipper Dora at his side. At this point he was wondering if she had stolen his good mood and used it to inflate her own.

They all shuffled into the classroom, and Snape began as was tradition, insulting non-Slytherins and demanding perfection without providing any instruction or critique. After the class started the potion - a wit-sharpening draught that Harry was sure Snape chose simply so he could make a snide remark about the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors needing it to pass - Harry noticed the professor staring at him again. It was disturbing, but he continued with his potion as best he could, trying to put Snape's actions out of his mind. He had hoped the dim lighting of the dungeon would have helped his headache, but it really only seemed to be getting worse. Harry sighed as he massaged the bridge of his nose, struggling to concentrate.

The tolling bell indicating the end of class only made the pain worse, though Harry was happy to get away from the dungeon bat.

"Mr. Black!" Snape called out, just as he was about to leave behind everyone else. Dora looked back, before Harry shooed her onward as he turned to face the sallow man. She stepped outside the room, the door slamming in her face from a wave of Snape's wand. Frowning, she moved to stand across the hallway, waiting for her boyfriend.

Harry slowly walked back towards the glowering man, trying to suppress the mounting headache that was getting to the point of making his vision swim.

"Yes sir?" He prompted the man to begin.

"I know you, Black. Don't think I didn't see Lily Evan's eyes in your skull. Nobody else may see it - but I do." The man stood jerkily, his movements uncharacteristically manic. Harry struggled to focus, trying to remember what could have given it away, and trying to decide on the best avenue forward. Dumbledore would advocate for telling the man the truth - but Harry would sooner kill him and risk the temporal breakdown. Was his current headache from the nexus point of decisions over this?

"You might claim to be a Black, but I recognize Potter, too. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were that spawn Potter forced out of Lily!" Harry's vision was swimming, seeing double, and he couldn't help but wonder just what Snape thought his parents' relationship was like? Had he deluded himself into thinking it wasn't consensual?

"But I figured it out! I know about Lily's sister, see - I know all about Petunia!" Snape was fingering his wand, pacing back and forth in front of the teen, who was nearly incapacitated by the blinding headache.

"You don't deny it? Of course, there's no point." Snape was throwing spittle with each accusation, more a hiss than a voice at this point. "I know you're James Potter's son, that he had with Petunia Evans when she was 15!" They hid you, giving you to this Phineas." Snape froze, slowly turning to stare at Harry with more hate than he had ever done so before. Harry stumbled into a chair, the blinding headache worse than any the scar had given him, completely unable to deny the accusations, much less protect himself from the stunner that slammed into his chest a moment later.

A/N:

This is my first story on FFN! I have some more works on AO3, if you're interested. I'll post a chapter a day here on FFN until I am caught up with AO3, at which time I'll be posting weekly!

Please comment with any questions, constructive criticisms, or recommendations! If you want early access or to chime in on oneshot polls, please see my linktree: /anarettekors