A/N: New Updated Chapter. Hope you all enjoy! We're going to have some training montages in the first few chapters just to show exactly what kind of spells Harry is dealing with but they will cut out soon enough. I do not own Harry Potter unlike J.K.

AU Changes: Bellatrix is the same age as Sirius, James, Lily etc. I'm lumping a lot of the characters into being born in 1960 to make this story work. Regulus is 3 years younger rather than 2 from Sirius, Andromeda Black is one year younger than Bella and Narcissa two years younger than her.

Shoutout to our Beta Reader, BoredBarrister for going through and editing.

Enjoy the next chapter. Onwards.

The Tragedy of Harry Potter

By. Momento Virtuoso
Edited By: BoredBarrister

Chapter 3

To Be A Good Man

Sneaking into the Ministry of Magic after hours was easier now than it had been in his fifth year. Entering the telephone box to access the guest entrance, Harry pinned the guest badge to his robes, which read in bold letters magically appearing:

Harry Evans
Department of Mysteries
Heist

The Atrium lay empty. There was no wizard guard to scan and catalog the wands of guests as they arrived at the entrance to the governmental building. No Aurors were on duty guarding the various entries or elevators near the offices. The Atrium was completely silent and absent of working souls. The dark marble, and The Fountain of Magical Brethren with its large golden statues, supposedly representing magical unity between several magical creatures and wizards. Harry looked up skeptically at the fountain, with its depicted creatures gazing adoringly at the witch and wizard. The propaganda behind the alloy was miniscule in the outside world. It had never looked less imposing to Harry.

Despite the lack of human presence, Harry knew that the Ministry of this time period, much like his own, was a very dangerous place. There could be Death Eaters, or potentially Imperiused victims, hiding inside the halls of the wizarding government, working for the Dark Lord or waiting to strike out in the empty halls. He had been ambushed here before by Death Eaters; it was not an experience he'd like to repeat.

Casting a disillusionment charm over his head with his newly acquired holly wand, Harry made his way to the golden elevators that would take him down to the ninth floor, where the Department of Mysteries resided alongside the Wizengamot courtrooms, within which the lords often met for their daily meetings.

Exiting the elevator after the quick ride down to the bowels of the Ministry, Harry approached the dark stoned door that he dreamed about for so many nights in his fifth year.

Harry was eternally grateful that the connection between them both had been broken when Voldemort had severed Harry's soul in the forest.

The knob to the black door housing the Department of Mysteries turned at his touch upon reaching for the cold brass. The barrier cast itself aside silently on its hinges, making way for Harry to enter the circular room lined with twelve identical doors. Much to Harry's luck, it seemed the Department had only found the good sense to lock it tight sometime in the next two decades.

The Time Room. Harry knew his destination in the maze that made up this Ministry Department. That was his goal this time, rather than the Hall of Prophecy. He had to see what the Unspeakables knew about Time-travel; Harry had to know if there was a potential way back to his time. Back to his friends.

Harry stepped through the doorway into the circular room. Immediately his disillusionment charm fluttered and failed, as if ripped away by wards. Harry was visible for anyone to see while inside the Department of Mysteries…

Before the door through which he had entered the Department closed and his surroundings began spinning, Harry cast a cutting curse upon its frame, leaving a physical 'X' on the door he entered from.

"It'll have to do," Harry grumbled to himself, wishing that he knew how to reliably cast the bluebell flames that Hermione had always been so proficient with. However, a big blue burning flame would alert anyone who came by, whereas someone would have to inspect the door closely in the dim lighting to spot the physical mark he left behind.

Harry didn't want to consider the consequences if he was caught down here. He was a nobody now. His fame as the Boy-Who-Lived wouldn't protect him, nor see him narrowly escape a stint in Azkaban for trespassing like his fifth-year adventure.

With the door to the rest of the Ministry — now firmly shut behind him — bearing its new marker, the room began to spin. For several moments, the doors spun at such a blur that Harry could no longer track them. Finally, the doors slowed and came to a complete stop.

Inspecting the doors to find the one bearing his 'X', Harry found the offending door, and moved to the next one to its right.

Taking the most forward route, Harry pushed open the door he had selected. The door revealed a large, open, expansive room filled with various unique objects. Desks lined one of the walls, with papers stacked high on each.

Harry's attention was immediately captured by the large tank of floating brains in the center of the room. He knew from his previous experience that his best interests lay in not touching a single one of the brains.

"The Room of Memory," Harry said quietly to himself.

In one corner of the room sat an eerie chair. It reminded Harry of the electric contraption that American muggles would use, and of his Uncle Vernon's giddy eulogizing about how they should have been implemented to rid Britain of its 'degenerates' — as the beet-faced walrus had coined them.

Glancing up, Harry noticed that the ceiling wasn't towering like the Hall of Prophecy — he could make out the vague outlines of arches in the darkness.

Like in the rest of the Department, there were no windows or natural light. The room was eerily lit by torches of blue and purple flames that gave off no heat, leaving a chill in the air.

Harry, despite his memory of Ron's idiotic summoning, approached the large tank and inspected the brains floating in their green liquid, moving, attaching, and detaching from one another. One brain took an interest in Harry and failed to get him through the glass.

His curiosity sated, Harry backed out of the memory room but left the door open so that the spinning enchantment on the circular room wouldn't begin again. If it did, Harry would be there all night, he thought glumly.

Moving to his right once again for the next door, he reached out and tried the door, but found it tightly locked. The handle would not budge an inch. Harry flicked his wand out. "Alohomora!" he cast to no avail, trying to open the door once again.

The door remained locked. Shaking his head, Harry moved onto the next door on the right side.

He swung the next open, to be greeted by the close-up sight of a floating celestial body. Harry didn't move into the room, as there was no perceivable floor before him. It seemed to expand out into nothingness…

Harry remembered what his friends had said about the room with the strange planets, and how it seemed to lack a floor, leaving them seemingly floating for some time while they tried to escape from the Death Eaters.

Having seen enough of this room as well, Harry moved on once more. However, his blood chilled at opening the next door.

Before him was an empty amphitheater-like space, with a solitary arch in the center. A translucent veil fluttered between its two pillars. Just like before, Harry's senses were immediately assaulted by an insistent chiseling at the base of his skull. A nudge. An urge to step closer; even to step through…

Harry could feel the call from the other side. He thought about the call of the train in the cathedral-like train station on the Otherside.

Harry stepped through the door into the Death Chamber. With every step, the chisel swung harder and harder at his skull. Wincing, Harry felt a sudden attack on his Occlumency shields — but there was nobody there to have assaulted him. He had felt the cool, comforting beckoning of death before in the Forbidden Forest, and he was feeling it here as well.

Harry's fingers began to shake at the feeling of the magic emanating from the archway. It chilled his body from his skin, to his bones, down to the ethereal being of his own exposed soul.

Unable to stop himself, Harry walked down the stairs towards an object that had haunted his nightmares ever since he was a fifth-year. He could still see Sirius falling through after being hit by Bellatrix Lestrange's curse when his eyes closed some nights. His most haunting memory was the mad woman's cackling laugh of joy at striking down her cousin.

Just like before, when he first came upon the arch and veil to rescue Sirius and deny Voldemort the prophecy, Harry had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil, on the other side of the archway, whispering away.

As he got closer, the whispering became much clearer, seducing all of Harry's physical senses. It became a carousel of voices that Harry could hear in and outside his head; voices he did and didn't recognize, repeating themselves over and over, some fast and others slow.

"Harry Potter … Lost Boy … Who Lived …"

'Must Die … Neither Can Live … Survive … Not The Hero? …'

"Knows The Power The Dark Lord Knows Not …"

"Help Will Always Be Granted At Hogwarts To Those Who Ask …"

'Hallows, Not Horcruxes … Hallows …'

'Not Harry, No…Kill Me Instead … Please! Not My Harry…'

'Death Cruel … Time Crueler … Object Of The Fates …'

"I Could Stay Up Here If You'd Like …"

'The Potion … It must be drunk …'

"Let Me Be Brave … Like My Brother"

"The Serpent Eats The Snake …"

'Am I a Good Man?'

'Blood … Does Not Lie …'

"Unwitting Sacrifice …"

"Like A Pig To Slaughter… Not The Hero?..."

'Bella—...'

Harry violently roused from his trance like state, launching himself backwards hard onto the dais, away from the fluttering veil. The chisel was back, and the voices were hissing angrily at Harry for refuting them once more.

Harry's breaths left his chest panicked. He hadn't realized how close he had been to the archway, his hand about to reach through the veil to whatever lay on the other side. Almost immediately, the voices and whispering stopped. His head no longer felt like it was being nailed to a board.

Adrenaline pumped through his body, despite not having any conflict so far on this mission. Harry felt like he had once again narrowly escaped the clawed hands of Death, a figure who eyed him warily but nevertheless accepted the young man's escape once again waiting to collect his due at the proper time.

Pulling himself off the floor, Harry retreated as quickly as he could from the haunting structure, flying up the stairs two at a time, not stopping until he flew past the door and slammed it shut behind him. With the other doors still open, the circular room stayed stationary.

Harry's mind was reeling from what he heard come through the veil, more disturbed than the first time he had been exposed to the strange ancient magic all — Harry wanted to put as much distance between him and that room as possible. After a life like his, there were very few things Harry could say terrified him beyond his wits; that room was one of those few.

Gathering his courage once more, Harry decided on another door and continued onward, moving along the right side.

Opening the next door, Harry came across his desired destination. The Time Room was filled with beautiful, dancing, diamond-sparkling light.

Clocks could be found on nearly every surface, large and small, grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between the bookcases or standing on desks ranging the length of the room, so that a busy, relentless ticking filled the place like thousands of minuscule, marching footsteps. It was enough to drive someone mad if they stayed around the ticking for too long.

There were desks everywhere filled with notes and even more clocks. Experiments were left out for anyone passing by to inspect. One jar held an arm that was fully grown, but below the wrist was pure white bone, while the hand was that of an infant. Other macabre tests with other body parts — animal and human — were in the works as Harry's eyes roamed across the notes and other jars.

However, the strange outliers in the room were the several cages suspended in the air or resting on the ground in one corner. They looked large enough to fit one to two people with ease. The space between the bars was thin enough to put an arm through but not escape from.

A huge crystal bell jar stood at the far end of the room, and it was from this that the sparkling light filling up the cavernous structure came. Sand was pooled at the bottom of the jar, dripping from the top but never seeming to shrink. Inside the bottom half of the bell jar was a small hummingbird in a constant state of flux. One moment the bird would be flying about, then it'd fall to its death, rise again, revert itself to an egg, hatch, and begin the cycle once more with each drop of sand that fell upon the small creature.

Harry approached and slowly walked around the large bell jar, watching the bird's life cycle play out tens of times before his eyes. He knew the danger that lay within the sand.

Returning to his mission at hand, Harry began looking through the rest of the room, searching for any and all information regarding traveling forward in time.

This task took much longer than Harry would have liked, though. He had found accounts of time travelers being tracked through history books, some of which were on display on several desks with their contents highlighted by some kind of organizing spell.

Often, he came across margin notes of how the traveler had managed a small deviation before succumbing to something while in the past. Red stamps displaying 'Terminated' were prolific across much of the documentation when Harry looked at mission and person of interest files.

Away from some of the experiments, in a locked case, sat shelves and shelves of time-turners. Harry glanced over the small golden and silver hourglasses, the very tools that had helped him save his godfather's soul from dementors in his third year at Hogwarts.

The case was locked via key, but Harry could feel the wards and enchantments humming just over the glass. If anyone tried to retrieve something from the case, they'd be in for a nasty surprise, for sure. He left the case alone.

Moving onwards to another desk, Harry took once again to reading through the notes more thoroughly about the various projects being down there, spotting several names such as Chronos, Aurora, Eventide, & Cycle.

The Unspeakables had detailed recordings of exposing someone to something called the Time Vortex. They kept more records, tracking their exposed subjects' movements in the past through magic, and even archaic methods such as historical documentation.

It seemed the Department liked to use squibs as guinea pigs the most since they were killed off in the past with ease. No major damage could occur to the timeline by the actions they would take, and the issue of a traveler would be concluded rather quickly. It was efficiently self-cleaning, Harry noted.

However, a few lines across several of the reports spoke of a radiation like sickness that every subject had been diagnosed with after being exposed to even trace amounts of the time vortex. No one had survived several months after exposure, according to one Unspeakables legible scribbled handwriting. Harry found and picked up one report for a project that chilled his bones.

Project Chronos Trial 078
Test Subject #0456

'Subject's cellular structure was torn apart after minimal exposure to vortex. Skin showcased the formation of blisters, turning red and darkening to a pustulent black. A latency period began shortly afterwards, where immediate effects subsided and was observed for #0456 and the other nineteen subjects in the testing pool. All twenty appeared to have been healthy during this time, but subjects began to show cellular damage manifesting afterwards. Subjects' bone marrow was dead upon inspection, and immune systems among patients began to fail. Two died from sickness during this time. Soon all the subject's organs and soft tissue had begun to decompose, with arteries and veins spilling open soon afterwards. It was decided that magic and potions would be used at Unspeakable Filmore's request on Subject #0456 and two others. These patients continued to last (with aid) for three weeks, while the other subjects expired after only three days. It was concluded that the dosage for the vortex does not prepare one's body for journey for a branch of time.

Flipping the page to the next subject's report, Harry read how it had taken only two weeks to expire. Another subject passed quickly in two and a half. However, the report that chilled Harry was one further down, with a singular line sticking out to him.

'Subject #0489 has managed to linger for four weeks, longer than any before them. Upon gathering enough data, it was determined that the subject was no longer viable, so a Killing Curse was administered to make way for the next test.'

How many had been subjected to this sort of testing? Harry wondered. From the vast amount of files and documents, Harry concluded that the experiments in here were ongoing for several decades.

There were several noted instances of wizard volunteers; whether they were Unspeakables or not was unknown in the documents. They were exposed to the vortex and sent back without a wand to see if they could influence events subtly. From what Harry could read, the project had been a resulting failure.

There was no such detailed recording, though, anywhere in the reports that Harry combed through of sending someone to the future. 'Then again, if it were done, how would those studying it in the past be aware that their trial had any success?' Harry thought grimly.

Cursing his luck, Harry shoved the files and paperwork away from him. Harry rubbed his eyes in exhaustion. He had lost track of how many papers he had read. Everything on the pages had simply begun to blur together. How long had he even been at this?

It had only been a few hours, just after the Ministry closed down, when Harry had snuck inside. He only had a few hours, potentially, until the first Ministry workers would arrive to start their next work day.

Checking his time piece on his wrist, Harry watched as the hour, minute, and second hand spun erratically. The room itself was distorting any sense of time it appeared. Whatever ancient magic was in here, like in the other room, played by its own terms.

For all Harry now knew, he could have been here for as short as ten minutes, or as long as ten hours.

"Well, it's not everyday we have a visitor down here," a voice spoke from behind. Harry swiftly turned around, drawing his wand and bearing it before him with a steady hand. His eyes widened as he found himself face-to-face with a person wearing dark robes and a cowl over their face.

The Unspeakable blocked the doorway to the circular room, Harry's only path of escape. Blinking twice quickly, Harry had to make sure he wasn't seeing a Death Eater in his exhaustion.

"You're not meant to be down here, boy," the Unspeakable growled out.

The Unspeakable drew their own wand and met Harry's with it bearing down on his torso.
"Put it down. Before you do something stupid, boy…"

Harry's eyes darted between the Unspeakable and his current surroundings. The Unspeakable's stance spoke of someone who was an experienced duelist or combatant in general. Harry's hand relaxed and tightened around his phoenix-wand. Just like his first time in the Department of Mysteries, Harry felt wholly unprepared upon being confronted.

"I was just going —" Harry was cut off by a beam of red from the unknown Unspeakable's wand. A stunning curse? Harry hoped. The young wizard dove to the ground behind a desk as the wood and paper on top exploded from the errant spell.

"Come on, little boy! Come out and play with me," the Unspeakable growled out. A Reducto disintegrated the desk, sending Harry diving away from it. The reports and documents flew into the air.

"Oppugno!" Harry called out, casting his wand towards his opponent. The paper all around the room began to turn into small birds, balls, and other various things, homing down on the Unspeakable. They assaulted the ministry worker, and even tried to cover their nose and mouth to cut off their airways.

The Unspeakable freed their arm from the assault, and twirled the magical medium in the air, creating a whip of fire which lit the storm of paper into a maelstrom of flames.

The Unspeakable banished the flames at Harry and launched the fire whip to capture the boy. The Department was never one to turn away new test subjects, after all.

Casting a quick Protego over himself, Harry escaped the fire with minimum burns. He sprang away from the whip as it crashed down and scorched the stone where he had been standing before.

Harry had to jump behind another large clock when a spell he didn't recognize was flung his way. Upon impact, the clock began to hiss and melt. It was a boiling hex of some sort; he balked at the nature of the spell.

He had had worse spells sent at him by much darker wizards. Hermione would have killed him over his appalling lack of knowledge for identifying spells, though, in that moment.

Deciding to go on the offensive, Harry leaped out and ran for more cover, throwing a litany of spells in rapid succession as he went. Stupefy, bludgeoning, and cutting curses flew from his wand. The Unspeakable easily dismissed them, however, diverting the spells away with the tip of their wand with ample time. Harry cursed his lack of ability with many non-verbal spells. There was only a handful that he had managed to master during his sixth year. Harry was outmatched.

'Constant vigilance! Always be aware of your surroundings!' the voice of his former Dark Arts professor, Alastor Moody, growled in his head. Harry needed to change the battlefield.

Looking around him, Harry took aim at the large bell jar in the center of the room. Harry remembered the unfortunate fate of the death eater who had come in contact with the sand upon a spell breaking the glass, acquiring a baby head in place of their old one; so too, the accelerated cycle of the hummingbird.

"Reducto!"Harry shouted with a wave of the holly wand. The glass of the jar exploded out across the room, filling the surrounding area with deadly projectiles seeking to pierce wherever they landed.

The unnamed Unspeakable grunted as one shard cut them across the hip, limiting their mobility, only for a wave of their wand to seemingly Waving their wand over the wound, a cold spell took hold and numbed the wound for them.

Eyes narrowed at Harry's audacity, the Unspeakable launched a vaguely red spell his way. A split second later, a couple of thick document folders were yanked through the air, morphing into thick iron chains at the slightest flick of the Unspeakable's wand. They flung the chains at Harry before he could even register the actions fully, his eyes widening in fear.

Harry was clipped by the red jinx, stumbling to his knees, but managed to transfigure the pair of chains mid-flight in a spark of brilliance back into the tools that the Unspeakable borrowed from their surroundings. Harry hurriedly got his feet back underneath him.

The Unspeakable simply glowered at the display from behind their cowl. The boy was good at avoiding, they might begrudgingly admit, but his spell work was abysmal. However, he'd have been absolutely beneath their notice if Harry hadn't managed to get this far into the Department without being lost or driven mad by the rooms.

The sand from the bell jar was flowing out across the floor quite freely now, making a large area of the room dangerous ground to enter. Both Harry and the Unspeakable gave it a wide berth for the knowledge they each held about its unassuming danger.

Harry, thinking fast on his feet, sprinted to the other side of the large, ever-growing sand pile. He cast a bone breaking hex at the Unspeakable to hide his next spell.

"Accio robes!" he whispered, his wand angled precisely at the Unspeakable's robes. The cowled figure flew forward with a startled cry, their body being dragged through the sand suddenly. Screaming in fright as the sand made contact, the figure began to shrink and shrink, until, instead of a scream, there was now the shrill cry of an infant, followed only by silence.

The summoned robes lay empty in the sand. Harry's eyes widened in shock. He had meant to turn the person into a baby, like what had occurred with the Death Eater, but Harry could see nothing moving, even inside of the robes and cowl.

Harry never thought the sand had the power to age someone backwards completely into nonexistence. He looked over at the hummingbird, which was now flying about the room peacefully after hiding away from the fight.

Suddenly, Harry felt sick to his stomach, emptying the contents of the dinner he had before arriving at the Ministry upon the floor. He had killed someone. Harry knew he had done so before; surely there had been someone in the battle at Hogwarts who had died, directly or indirectly, from his spells.

But the personal nature of seeing the kill in action without a major battle raging around him rang out to Harry like a drum, reverberating down his spine.

Dumbledore had always warned that cold blooded murder was unnatural and harmed the soul. It was one of the few ways of doing so without diving into the dark arts. While Harry wasn't keen to listen to the old man much anymore, he couldn't shake the weight of that concept.

Surely this wasn't cold blooded murder, though? Harry tried to rationalize within himself.

The phoenix-wand trembled in Harry's hand as the appendage lost its composure. Wiping his face with his free hand, Harry tried to collect his thoughts.

'I'm alive. The year is 1977. I've just murder— no, defended myself against someone who would have conducted human experiments on me and Merlin knows how many other innocents,' Harry thought frantically.

Attempting to regain his composure, Harry slowed his breathing down. He had once again been more lucky than skilled and walked away from it. How much longer would this last? It couldn't, he thought grimly.

Eventually, something had to give, and it would be his life if the course remained this way. Looking around the destroyed room, Harry could see that he would glean no more information about any way to go forward in time.

Harry was stuck in 1977 in the middle of the First Wizarding War. A tear escaped from his eyes. His friends — Ginny, and his infant godson, Teddy Lupin rose like specters in his mind. Harry wouldn't see them again as they were — if he ever met them in this timeline, he wouldn't be Harry Potter by that point, the famous Boy-Who-Lived or the Chosen One, let alone anyone that they'd even know.

His previous life was officially dead to him.

Harry's gaze moved around the room. There was no possible way to clean the proverbial and literal mess that he had made. Half of what was damaged went beyond repair and that wasn't even accounting for the missing employee the Ministry would inevitably search for.

With his search for answers complete. Harry proceeded to maneuver his way through and back out the Department of Mysteries, out of the Ministry, and back to Diagon Alley with more problems on his mind than he entered the Time room with.

Inside Potter manor, Charlus Potter, the Lord Potter, sat in his study, staring at the family ring resting upon his hand. The family heirloom had been passed down through generations; the ring had been updated, altered, even one time during the 1600s destroyed and remade. It had never failed a single family head — until now.

The ring felt conflicted upon Charlus' hand like the magic was serving him and another.

It was of simple craft. It was a plain gold band, red gold stone embedded with the family motto 'Vosmet ipsos movete; Animae nostrae sunt nostra', 'Move Yourself; Our Souls Are Our Own' shining on top. The Potters had always been a simple family amongst the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

The elder Potter could still assert his influence over the ring and wrangle the family magic which controlled much of the wards and other assets to the family name. However, it was like pulling blood from a stone.

Charlus had heard of rings performing this way when they were given over to a proxy-lord by Noble and Ancient families during times of great unrest.

In fact, he had practically run away to fight on the continent against Grindelwald to escape Lord Parkinson's nagging about how the Black family ring was attempting to murder him in his sleep at night during his tenure as proxy. 'It's odd,' Charlus thought. The magic had accepted him earlier, so why not now? What was so special about yesterday's sunrise?

The door to his study opened, permitting his wife, Dorea Potter — formerly known as Dorea Black — to enter the room to accost her husband.

"Charlus, darling, would you stop staring at that old thing? Your sight is already retreating and I'd rather not have to take you to St. Mungo's to fix another case of you becoming cross-eyed," Dorea nagged.

She had woken up to her husband staring and fiddling with that infernal ring in bed yesterday morning. She was now tempted to cut the thing from his finger and leave it in a box for their son, James.

Charlus looked up at his wife and smiled. "Sorry my love. It's just this blasted thing, it's been fighting me since yesterday and I don't know why… James didn't Confundo me into making him Lord again, did he?" Her husband asked with wide eyes of fear.

His reputation still hadn't recovered from that particular fiasco. Nothing could've prepared the Wizengamot for that dreadful day when a thirteen year old James Potter entered the chambers, being recognized by the magic to hold a standing vote during one winter eve while on holiday from Hogwarts. The annoying twinkle of a smile had never left Dumbledore's face, and his friend Arcturus's scowl was more plastered than usual during those meeting's drawn out affairs.

Dorea's smile broke out into full laughter at the question. Only her husband or son could make the stoic Lady Potter laugh as much as she did.

"No dear, James didn't Confundo you this time. He's been too busy sneaking out again, and even young Sirius doesn't know where he is going," Dorea grumbled.

Charlus could hear the hidden statement, though. "But you do, I'm assuming?" he asked with a grin.

"Of course I do! You silly man, James may think he's being sneaky with that old family cloak of yours, but a mother always knows when her boy is involved with a girl," Dorea smirked in mirth.

Lord Potter's eyes widened at his wife's observation. He had known that James had been barking up a proverbial tree and having a pinecone tossed at his head often enough for his troubles when it came to one classmate of his, a certain Miss Evans. But to think the lad had actually managed to win the girl over was something else.

"That lad is either going to get the girl, or the grandfather of all harassment charges brought up against him," Charlus grumbled.

His head fell into his hands. However, his attention was once again back on the ring, much to Dorea's chagrin. Her smile dropped immediately at the sight of it.

Charlus was an old man now, compared to his youth spent fighting on the continent. He had signed up to battle a Dark Lord at the young age of nineteen after his father, Fleamont Potter, had been killed during a duel against the famous Gellert Grindelwald. His father hadn't lasted more than a few minutes at best. Grindelwald had personally sent the family ring back to Charlus with a note announcing his duel with his father, and Fleamont's death.

'Could it possibly be a long-lasting curse placed back then on the ring by Grindelwald? But then, why would it choose now to activate?' Charlus thought. Dorea, his wife, snapped Charlus from his thoughts once again.

"Charlus, if the ring isn't responding to you like it should, then that could mean one of very few things. Since Minister Minchum isn't banging down your door about James putting forward half-cocked legislation involving werewolf liberties again, that list drops down further," Dorea explained.

Charlus and Dorea's eyes both moved across to the wall holding the family tapestry.

Above their names rested Charlus' father, Fleamont Potter. Below their names rested their only son, James Fleamont Potter. The Potter line had been dwindling for decades now with concurrent single births since the early 18th century. There were few, if any, branch lines left on the family tree. The outer branches looked sickly and dead in their weavings.

However, off to the side of James, was a white opaque burn which certainly hadn't been there the last time they had looked upon the family history. It bore no name, nor features of who occupied the place on the tree. It was almost as if magic itself was denying the recording.

"Something is at play now, Dorea, my dear. I'll have to get to the bottom of it, if only for Jamie's sake." Charlus declared.

His wife nodded her head. She had never known a tapestry to act the way theirs was. Even the extensive one of the Blacks, bearing its many branches and burn marks, recorded any and all information on the blood line. She'd have to approach her brother Arcturus, the Lord Black, about this issue. The man knew close to everything there was to know about tapestries.

Unbeknownst to the Potters, in his own study in Grimmauld Place, Arcturus Black was glaring down at his own family ring, dealing with the very same conundrum.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was one of the most affluent families in all of Wizarding Britain.

The family had been devastated by the rise and campaign of Grindelwald though, with more than a few family members joining the charismatic man during his campaign against the muggles and wizards who opposed him. Several prominent members, such as Cygnus II, Sirius II, Pollux, and Cassiopeia Black, had supported the Dark Lord, leaving bloody wakes across Europe in their own rights.

With a new crop of upcoming witches and wizards in the Black family nearing the end of their education at Hogwarts, the duty, pride, and faith of the family was placed uniquely on each's shoulders.

Bellatrix Black was the oldest of her three sisters. She was to attend her final year at Hogwarts alongside her rambunctious and often misguided cousin, Sirius. While her younger sister Andromeda was a sixth year behind her, her youngest sister Narcissa was in her fourth year with Sirius' brother, Regulus.

Regulus Black, the heir apparent now since his brother Sirius had been banished by his mother Walburga, was a quiet boy, preferring the company of the house elf, Kreacher, and his books rather than others.

Grimmauld Place was a dark household even on the best of days. The family lived under their head and Lord Black, Arcturus. A man who had seen his family be nearly torn apart by a Dark Lord and was watching history repeat itself.

Many of the older generation in the Black family were either too young to remember the war, or had been born after the conflict. However, everyone felt the economic hit that the country had taken in the post-war years. Muggle and Wizarding Britain alike attempted to rebuild themselves and support the fading empire.

The family's already bigoted view of muggles was darkened and enraged even further from the damage of the German war machine which bombed London for years on end. Anger also persisted at the muggle-borns for ruining the pure bloodlines through marriage, and forcing more and more wizards into legislatively conceding their traditions in a form of political compromise with the newly-minted members of their society.

Strained inside and out, the family was set on the brink of implosion. Sirius, named after his grandfather who had supported Grindelwald, had already been blown off the family tree by his mother for one too many defiances to the family honor. Banishment from the family was a fear that silently held Bellatrix back from expressing herself fully, given her own minor infractions.

Compliance was not a hereditary trait of the Blacks, but it was one instilled within them since their first conscious moments. The lessons stuck better for some than others.

Bellatrix spent most of her time within the family's extensive library, learning and practicing the Black family magic. The witch was a natural with the curses, and held a slight sadistic streak when left unchecked. Bellatrix's hold on magic was just as beautiful as her stunning dark looks.

She was, by all the standards of witches, a beautiful woman, the envy of many in her house and the whole of Hogwarts. Her dark curls cascaded down her back when allowed to rest free, her body lithe and athletic from her dueling training with her grandfather. She was by all means a prodigious menace with her wand, but Bellatrix had yet to land a blow that would topple the Lord Black.

Footsteps alerted Bellatrix to her approaching company. The small figure of her youngest sister, Narcissa appeared from the doorway of the library, looking at her older sister hesitantly.

"Bella, Auntie Walburga wants us to gather in the parlor room. There is a family meeting," the younger Black sister reported, almost dutifully. Bella looked up from the family grimoire, eyeing her sister. She loved Cissy, the young girl being absolutely everything that was the epitome of what a pureblood lady should be. Bellatrix was disappointed that her little sister's magical talents would be wasted in a political marriage. It was another fear she held for herself.

"And what does Grandfather have to say about that? Last time Auntie tried calling a family meeting by herself, he threatened to bind her magic and leave her for the muggles outside," Bellatrix said with a smirk. She always enjoyed being with Grandfather when he finally saw fit to lash out at those who angered him.

Her Aunt had been overstepping her station for years now. Her husband Uncle Orion, while being the heir, possessed no spine to speak of. Bellatrix and her sisters were told often to be respectful and obedient wives for their future husbands yet Walburga was the antithesis to that model.

"He doesn't know," Cissy whispered quietly. Bella's eyebrow raised at the answer. An uncalled meeting was never a good affair in the Black household. It was in a meeting just like this when the family had been told of cousin Sirius's disinheritance without consulting Grandfather.

Closing the tome and nodding at Narcissa, Bellatrix rose and went to meet with the rest of the family inside the parlor.

Bellatrix walked in to an already bickering argument. Her younger sister, Andromeda, was in a fury, face red and eyes filled with venom at their Aunt Walburga. Her younger sister's body posed like a snake waiting to strike the woman at the first sign of weakness. However, Walburga was a glacier, cold, and unwelcoming as she stared down at her second born niece.

"It is a good match for you, Andromeda. You'll marry Rabastan Lestrange, or else. You have a duty to perform for our house," Walburga all but growled from behind clenched teeth.

The woman had lost much of her beauty in recent years. It had begun when she had excommunicated her first born son from the family — for refusing to obey her requests — at sixteen.

Her raven black hair, for which the family was famous, was lightening and graying in various patches. Her face was lined with stress, or age, despite her being nowhere near 'old' for a witch. Her eyes held a glint of the Black Madness that they all lived in fear of. Walburga had never been proficient enough at Occlumency to stave off the family's illness of the mind.

"No! I won't marry him! The boy is a cur and more beast than man, with his inner cruelty. If you're intending for me to be caged with a womanizer, then by all means, he is the best match!" Andromeda countered.

Bellatrix sat mutely in a lounge chair across from her mother, Druella, and her father, Cygnus II. The day that she had feared had arrived. She figured they were only discussing Andy's marriage at the moment because she was the first daughter within the room. She and Cissy would surely be next.

Her cousin Regulus stood in the corner, near his father, Orion, who was trying to blend into the wallpaper behind him. Bella shook her head at the coward of a man. She knew that he still supported his son Sirius, off the record, so he was capable of having rare moments of independence from his wife. However, in times like these, he was just another yes-man.

"You silly girl! It is done! The contracts have been drawn up. All we need to do is sign them before your return to Hogwarts, and you shall spend this year with your engaged before he graduates with your sister," Walburga hissed, her face distinctly harpy-like.

Walburga turned onwards to the other two daughters of her brother, Cygnus. "Bellatrix, you shall marry the Lestrange heir, Rodolphus. Narcissa, you will be married to the Malfoy heir, Lucius. These are all good marriages," Walburga stressed with a tone that brokered no further arguments.

Bellatrix swallowed down her dread and nodded. Narcissa, on the other hand, looked overjoyed — one would dare to say almost dreamily so — upon hearing of her betrothal.

"What about Regulus, then? If you are betrothing Cissy at fourteen, surely you have a match lined up for your own son before your nieces?" Bellatrix asked, hoping that her tone didn't sound too indecent. She was grasping desperately for any potential debris from the situation to save her — surely Walburga wouldn't marry her nieces off before her own son and, now, heir?

Walburga shook her head at her second misguided niece. "Regulus does not have a betrothed yet; he has a different task to restore the honor and pride of the house than you three do."

Regulus looked sickly at his mothers comment. His eyes never left the antique Persian carpet on the floor.

Bella noticed. What could her Aunt possibly ask of a fourteen year old boy, that would make him look like he wanted to jump in front of a hippogriff at that very moment?

Bellatrix decided for one more rally of teenage defiance against her banshee of an aunt.
"Are all our matches approved by Grandfather?" she asked.

Bellatrix hoped that she could practically physically summon the old man himself with that question, but he had been locked in his study for days, now, muttering about his damn ring.

The room's temperature dropped several degrees. If Uncle Orion hadn't already been trying to blend into the wall, he might have started to become part of the very structure itself.

Bellatrix's parents couldn't look any of their daughters but Narcissa in the eyes. They had known how productive this meeting would be the moment she and Andy learned of their fates. However, it was extremely faux pas for an Ancient and Noble House to marry the youngest daughter before the older siblings. So, the two girls had to be matched as well — almost like they were sacrifices for their sister's own match.

"Your grandfather will see the merit in the matches that I've gone through the trouble of making for you ungrateful girls. These are noble families with a worthy cause we should all be supporting," Walburga decreed.

No one in the room was misguided about the meaning behind their aunt's words. Everyone knew that she was a fervent supporter of the new wave behind the Pureblood movement, much to Grandfather's dismay.

Bellatrix turned her own cold gaze onto her parents. "And you, father? Mother? Do these matches for your daughters seem to be of merit and approval for you?" Bellatrix's eyes bore into her parents as they glanced at Walburga for a moment before nodding to their oldest daughter.

Walburga may have had Orion's balls in her purse but it couldn't be said that she didn't have her brother firmly under her thumb first. Bellatrix's mother, on the other hand, was the epitome of a doormat for her husband. In all their years of marriage, Druella had only ever argued with Cygnus about not providing a male heir for him.

With a hum and a flare of her nostrils, Bellatrix removed herself from the lounge chair and stormed out of the room. Her skirts billowed behind her as a draft entered from the open door. She had to confront her grandfather about this. There was no way she would marry a drooling Lestrange who couldn't tell his own wand from his manhood. The old man needed to get a rein on his daughter-in-law before Bellatrix did it for him.

However, time was not on her side. She and her sisters would be off to Hogwarts a month from now, exactly when the contracts were expected to be signed. She needed to act fast.

Harry lay across his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his rented room. His escape from the Department of Mysteries had been uneventful. Casting a disillusionment charm had been easy once he left the Department itself. The only difficult part had been finding an elevator in use that was empty enough for no one to bump into an invisible figure.

His foray had turned up more questions than he found answers to, however — answers he had to find soon, for his own wellbeing and now potentially the wizarding world as a whole.

Everything cluttered Harry's mind. The voices from the Archway and Veil, the discovery of the experiments the Unspeakables had been undergoing involving time, and the realization he was here for good — in 1977.

That fact had Harry rather excited, and utterly guilt-ridden over his excitement. Finally, he had to consider the prophecy, if it would still apply in this time period, and the issue of the twin-cores residing in his and Voldemort's wand. He needed a new one, preferably without a trace and limiting enchantment. He'd have to fetch an illegal wand through nefarious means.

Harry knew of very few places he could purchase a black market wand. The only wandsellers he had known about were Ollivander and Gregorovitch. The latter had supplied Viktor Krum with his wand, and once possessed the Elder Wand before Grindelwald —

'Wait! that's it. The Elder Wand,' Harry thought.

In the previous timeline, Voldemort had hunted the wand down through its history, all the way to Dumbledore's grave to possess it in order to circumnavigate the issue of the twin-cores.

Gregorovitch had possessed the wand for a time, Harry knew. The old wandmaker had been trying to replicate the properties of the wand into his own crafts. However, it was stolen by a young Grindelwald, something that the respected wandmaker had told Lord Voldemort before his own demise at the Dark Lord.

Perhaps he could prevent Tom from retrieving the wand this time. While he did not like Dumbledore much anymore, he didn't want to see the man murdered again.

Dumbledore had expressed how powerful the Hallows were, and he had said Harry was capable of wielding the three legendary artifacts — he had already done it unknowingly.

But how was he going to get to Bulgaria to attempt to retrieve a new capable wand and start his quest for the Deathly Hallows?

He could try to apparate across the Continent, but that would leave him potentially exhausted, or even dead from a nasty splinching in a ditch. Harry supposed he could use a broom or inquire about a portkey to the country.

For the second time that day, Harry was going back into the Ministry of Magic — hopefully this time albeit for a more legal purpose.

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Let me know if you see any blatant errors and we'll go about editing them out. Thank you readers!