Time seemed to slow to a standstill, and the world narrowed to a single point. Harry watched as his godfather tumbled through the air, blasted back by the witch whose cackle now filled the room with demented laughter. Harry could see that Sirius was about to fall through the archway, and that nobody was moving to stop it, only staring on like sheep in a crowd. The duels had stopped, spells going silent, and Harry's ears were filled with only Bellatrix's laugh. He pushed through Remus's grip, and ran across the room as the death eaters took the initiative and started casting. He barely registered as Neville took a dark cutting curse across his face and fell to the ground, and Ginny had been trussed up with thorned vines instead of conventional rope.
Just as Sirius was about to pass through the veil, Harry managed to jump at the last moment, and tackle them both through together. Before Harry could really comprehend anything, A searing pain in his scar blinded him, his vision going white as something was bodily ripped from him. It felt as if it was pulling a parasite out, that clung deeply to not only his body but his magic and essence, as well. Finally it came free, and Harry lost consciousness.
Harry slowly came around to the dim sound of familiar voices in the distance. He was laying on a soft surface, but not of a definable texture. As his eyes slowly fluttered open, all that was visible was white - with no discernable differentiation between whatever surface he was lying on, or the sky - ceiling? - nor could he identify any walls or features on what he thought was the horizon, but it was only his internal sense of up and down that let him make any distinction whatsoever.
He slowly propped himself up, and turned towards the voices. He could see Sirius and what looked to be… his parents? He was too far away to hear their discussion, but they seemed to be laughing and happy. Harry's eyes misted over as he saw Sirius with a legitimate, full smile on his face for the first time. He wasn't close enough to tell, but he imagined that the haunted, empty look his godfather had worn for the entire time he had known him would be gone, too.
Harry slowly came to stand, and walked across the oddly soft but featureless ground towards the reunited trio. His father seemed to notice the movement first, because he turned to grin at Harry with a wide smile, but Harry's focus was quickly occupied by his mother, who after following his father's gaze and realizing he was awake, had sprinted at him full speed and encompassed him in a more crushing hug than either Hermione or Mrs Weasley could ever hope to match.
Lily Potter pulled away slightly, and looked up into her son's eyes. She cupped his jaw in her hands and turned his head this way and that, getting a good look at her grown child. Finally satisfied, she pulled him into a much more relaxed embrace.
Harry melted into her arms, and began crying. He felt home for the first time he could remember. Something instinctual, deep within him, must have recognized this because it just felt right.
Harry couldn't see through the tears, but he felt his father and godfather approach. They joined the hug, encompassing Harry in the feeling of family that he had been missing since that Halloween night, and had completely forgotten how it felt.
"It's okay son, It's okay." James Potter whispered to him. It set off a bit more tears, but it was quite possibly the most comforting thing anyone had said to him.
They finally all pulled apart, none of them with dry eyes, but there was too much to discuss.
"Harry, we don't have much time. The soul shard you brought over will only buy us passage back for so long." Sirius warned him. Lily nodded, tears still tracking down her face despite the wide smile she was sporting.
"Yes, Harry, as much as I want to sit and laugh and cry over every detail of your life that we missed, and then make new memories together, we don't have the time. This is only the in-between, and soon you will either have to choose to stay or go back." Lily still held his shaking hands in hers, even as she had pulled away from the hug. She squeezed them before continuing. "Whatever you choose, we'll support you. But know that we will see each other again, no matter what."
James took over for his wife, sharing a glance with her. - "Yes, but we really can't tell you much about it, I'm afraid. Just know that it exists and that nobody is ever truly gone, okay?" He put his hand on Harry's shoulder with sad eyes. "I will support any decision you make, but I recommend you go back."
Harry pulled away, shocked that his father would suggest such a thing. He looked to his mum, and even she was nodding.
"Harry dear, don't mistake us, we love you, and want you, but we also want you to live your life. There are things in the real world that you can't do in the afterlife. I want you to be able to experience everything there is there, first, all the wonderful things that life has to offer, before… retiring." Lily reached out to him again, desperately needing to hold and reassure her son.
Harry relaxed back into his mother's arms, as Sirius spoke up.
"I'm not governed by the same rules as your parents, so I can go back with you. A weird quirk of how we arrived. You won't be alone, and up here, Prongs tells me, time is a bit meaningless. So it won't be that bad, once we return." Harry looked to his father, from his mother's shoulder. James nodded, a pained smile on his face and pride, but hurt in his eyes.
"I know we are asking for you to go without us for a long time, but to us, it'll be both eternity and a blink of an eye. Don't worry about it. And frankly, Harry, they need you, they need both of you back down there." James looks to Surius - "And you Padfoot, I need you to be serious - no puns! - No recklessness, this is a second chance so astronomically unlikely that it has never happened before and will probably never happen again. Take care of our son, will you?"
Sirius held his gaze, and nodded, too choked up to speak. Lily pulled away from Harry, but held onto his shoulders. "Never doubt that we loved you. Never think that our deaths were your fault. We would sacrifice ourselves again, every damn day, to keep you alive, and frankly I hope that by going back you'll be able to understand just what we mean by that." Lily's eyes were hard, determined, but still loving. She gripped his shoulders harder, before breaking their locked gaze and turning to walk away.
"Before you go back, though, we have some things to talk about, and not a lot of time to do so!
Coming back to the land of the living was a hell of a lot more painful than visiting the dead, Harry absentmindedly thought as he picked himself up off the floor of the veil room. He looked around and saw Sirius doing the same a few paces away, but was more immediately confused by the lack of continuing battle or even spell scorches on the walls.
"Sirius, where is everyone? Why does the room look fine?"
Before his godfather could answer though, a door into the room opened, and an unspeakable walked through. They froze as the door closed behind them, their mind clearly taking a second to register that two people were just casually in the department of mysteries. They quickly had their wand pointed at the pair, and advanced.
"Who are you and how did you get in?" They asked, clearly with some force but the modulation hiding their identity within their hood took a lot of the emotion out of the question.
Harry held his hands out at his side, confused, but trying not to antagonize the unspeakable. "I'm Harry Potter, This is my godfather, and we just fell out of the archway there… Didn't a battle happen here recently? Where is everyone? Did you guys get Bellatrix?"
The unspeakable seemed to freeze at his name, and visibly recoiled when he mentioned Bellatrix. After another moment, where Sirius wisely was quiet and mirrored his godson's stance, the greycloak motioned with their wand.
"Through the door, now! We'll talk more in my office."
As they entered the unspeakable's office, an alarm went off in the hallway. As the unspeakable shut her door behind them, still holding them at wand point, they activated some runes on the doorjam and the klaxon faded to silence as privacy wards went up. They gestured them into the seats facing their desk with her wand, and carefully came around them, to sit with their wand still trained upon them. Giving both of them a quick look, their wand drooped in surprise as they gave Sirius a closer examination.
"Siri?" was exhaled, more a breath than a whisper, and the unspeakable quickly looked between the two of them, before reaching up and removing their hood to reveal a woman in her late thirties, with black curly hair and blue eyes, and a facial structure surprisingly similar to both Bellatrix and Sirius, Harry noted as his eyes narrowed.
"Andi?!" Sirius sat back in shock as he took in the much younger face of his favorite cousin. "Wait, how old are you?" Sirius's eyes searched for an answer as his hands gripped the arms of his chair.
Andromeda Tonks sat up imperiously. "Sirius Black, you know it is improper to ask a woman her age! I know you had disagreements with my aunt but to completely disregard your manners is a disgrace…" She trailed off, realizing what she was saying. "Merlin, it really is you!" Her eyes jumped to Harry. "And then you're really Harry Potter…?" She asked leadingly, Harry simply nodded, overwhelmed.
They all sat back, mostly confused, definitely shocked. Andromeda's eyes finally narrowed as she looked more closely at the two of them.
"What year do you two think it is?" Harry and Sirius shared a look, coming to the same conclusion she had. Sirius took the lead again and spoke up.
"1996. We were fighting death eaters in the veil room when Bellatrix blasted me through the archway and Harry here" - He turned a gimlet eye upon his godson, who quailed under the look of the only parental figure he had, and sank into his seat - "Thought it would be a good idea to jump after me!"
Andromeda fixed Harry with a look that spoke of her opinion of that action, as well. She was a mother too, of course! Harry didn't quite understand how he was suddenly surrounded by people who cared he had done something so reckless, usually it was just Hermione giving him that sort of look.
She turned back to Sirius. "It's currently 1989. So we're going to have a long talk to figure out if you two are from the future, an alternate dimension, or what. The first thing…" Andromeda trailed off as a departmental missive came in, despite her privacy wards. She frowned, and began to read.
"They are having an all hands meeting to discuss a large magical event in the veil room. They don't appear to know that you two came out of it, but I can't have you here. You'll need to floo somewhere while I go see what nonsense they think happened." She thought for a second.
"We can't have you two wandering around until we figure out if this is a temporal paradox or not. So I think it's best if you just go to my house. Feel free to make tea or something. Floo address is Tonks' Townhome." As she spoke, she was taking down the privacy wards and pulling her hood back up. Harry and Sirius found themselves bustled towards the fireplace and shooed through.
Harry tumbled through the fireplace first, followed closely by Sirius. He stumbled a few feet before falling to his knees, managing to at least not shoot across the room like he used to. Sirius managed to stay upright, but he didn't look too steady, his eyes unfocused in thought. The two of them collected themselves and looked about. It was a muggle living room, with sofa and armchair and television and all its accouterments. Harry moved to look at the framed pictures above the mantel, and under his gaze, the muggle still photos of a jolly father, loving mother, and daughter of all ages shimmered and changed to wizarding photographs that moved with laughter and joy. The daughter's hair was always changing colors in the photos when she was younger, but by the time she was 8 or 9, it seemed to always be a bright pink. A couple showed her changing her nose into an animal's, only to be scolded by her mother as she and her father laughed.
"Tonks?" Harry questioned.
"Yeah, Andi is Nymphadora's mum. The only metamorphmagus in the black family in over a century, and of course my grandfather must be rolling in his grave due to it being from an infusion of muggleborn blood." Sirius barked out a laugh as he looked over Harry's shoulder at the photos.
"Oh look here, Harry." Sirius pointed to a photograph right at the end of the mantel, from when Tonks was much younger. "Here you are!"
Harry quickly came to look, and sure enough, it was Tonks holding him. He must have been only a few months old at the time. She was entertaining him with her hair colors, and he giggled in the photo as he tried to grab at it.
"You were left with Andi and Dora a few times while your parents were busy, before you all went into hiding… Little Dora insisted she would marry you at some point, you know? It was hilarious."
Harry blushed at the idea, but in the back of his mind, he thought that wouldn't be the end of the world. Tonks was funny! And pretty, if he was willing to allow himself those thoughts.
Sirius clapped a hand onto his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go make a pot of tea. And maybe I can find us some biscuits.
Harry and Sirius were sat at the Tonks' kitchen table, having some biscuits with their tea, when they heard the floo activate. Looking over, expecting Andromeda, It took them completely by surprise when a teenage Dora stormed into the kitchen.
"Merlin, dad I'm starving! Do you think mom got my favorite biscuits?" She shouted over her shoulder, before turning to look forward as she came through the doorway. Finding two people sitting at her kitchen table short-circuited her brain, and she tripped over her own feet, before tumbling into Harry, sending both of them to the floor and the chair he had been sitting on crashing to the side.
Ted Tonks was rolling his eyes as he set his daughter's trunk in the entryway. Every year, the same thing happened, she would trip on something as she came back home. He walked into the kitchen after her, and stopped in his tracks.
"Who the hell are you?!"