Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction based on the world of Harry Potter, which is owned by J. K. Rowling and company. No one is profiting financially from this story.

Author's Note: I apologize that this is going to look like a new chapter when it's not. This used to be Chapter 2. It got renumbered when I moved the epilogue from HPPW to Chapter 1 of this story.

11 February 1995, Department of Mysteries

Mr. Gray arrived back in 1995 about ten minutes after he left. There was no dramatic light or sound; he just appeared. Croaker and Bode were waiting for him in the same spots they were in when he left.

Mr. Gray quickly filled his colleagues in on his time in the future and how their work on time travel had to be rewritten from scratch.

Since Mr. Gray still could not transport anything other than himself during his specialized forms of time travel and teleportation, he would have to transcribe the work he and Gabrielle had done from memory. Fortunately, he and Gabrielle had anticipated this; Mr. Gray had sat and slowly read through the notes from the beginning so that only a single pensieve memory would be needed to recreate the notes.

After Mr. Gray retrieved the memory and transcribed the notes, he completely lost Croaker and Bode's attention as they pored through the new research like nifflers in a mound of gold.

Mr. Gray had been in the future almost seven weeks. He felt like he had a lot of catching up to do. In the present, though, he had been gone for ten minutes. No one except Croaker and Bode even knew he'd traveled. Regardless, Mr. Gray summoned Flipsy and asked for a status report of everything going on.

Flipsy told him, "The new facility is complete. The move-in plan is complete. Development of the imager cannot proceed any farther until the team correlates their research with the test subject. Once that is done, the team will begin assembling the device."

The team would correlate the blueprints for the imager with Mr. Gray, not with the "test subject", but they didn't know that yet.

Mr. Gray replied, "Thank you, Flipsy. Please return to your work."

That night at dinner, Mr. Gray told the team, "As you know, the planned move-in day is this Wednesday, February 15. You all did a tremendous job of preparing for the move: everything is ready to go. Since you have exceeded expectations, we are advancing the move-in date to Monday."

Everyone cheered at this. They were all tired of working in temporary facilities. The idea of working in a place tailored to fit their needs sounded great.

13 February 1995, Department of Mysteries

The Riddle Response Team started moving in to the new area right after breakfast. The move went smoothly and lasted until an hour before dinner. Mr. Gray thought it might be the first time - and probably the only time - that everything went as planned.

The team was moved in, but there was one more task before they could begin working in the new facility. The Department was bringing in one of the world's most renowned cursebreakers to give the area the most thorough scan possible. Croaker would be escorting him in tomorrow morning.

Mr. Gray planned to share his identity with the team once everyone had settled in and he was absolutely certain the area was secure.

Mr. Gray felt quite exposed and vulnerable at the thought of sharing his identity with so many people. Coming out of his safe anonymous Unspeakable robes was like a turtle leaving its shell. Mr. Gray really needed someone to talk to (and, although he'd never say it aloud, someone to cuddle with).

He needed Gabrielle.

Mr. Gray did the calculations in his head for the trip but couldn't get a usable answer, so he sat at the desk in his new quarters and tried again to derive the equations to reach Gabrielle. He discovered that journey from present day to Gabrielle's apartment building in 2025 could not be expressed in a form he could use.

Mr. Gray was reminded of one of the axioms of time travel that he and Gabrielle had discovered: "Any two moments in time and space can be connected. However, that connection may or may not be able to be expressed in terms of runic equations." This tenet was true even across multiple timelines, realities, or universes.

Mr. Gray used runic equations in conjunction with the adaptive runes on his body to time travel, a method no one else could use. Without runic equations, Mr. Gray couldn't time travel. This had not been an issue with the three journeys Mr. Gray had made after he and Gabrielle had discovered the axiom. In fact, those equations had been rather simple, as though the universe wanted Mr. Gray back in his own time.

Now, however, he did the calculations for every year from 1995 to 2030, and he could not find a usable answer. Mr. Gray worked through the night calculating again and again, changing the time of day, the day of the year, the physical location - none of it mattered. He couldn't find a way to reach "his" Gabrielle.

Finally, just before dawn, his frustration boiled over. He stood up suddenly, picked up his desk, and through it across the room, screaming language that would have had Hermione vanish his vocal cords. Then he did the same with his bed. Mr. Gray threw and screamed and finally even cried until he was spent. He finally slid down a wall onto the floor in the shattered remains of all of his furniture and possessions.

Mr. Gray could not appreciate the irony of being able to reach his Gabrielle by accident but not on purpose.

14 February 1995, Department of Mysteries

Mr. Gray did not emerge from his room for breakfast. Croaker escorted the cursebreaker into the new facility while the rest of the team continued unpacking and setting up.

The cursebreaker was the best person the Department could hire at detecting, identifying, and dealing with spells, runes, and anything else that could be used to spy on an area. He would be doing the most thorough security scan possible on the new area.

The staff had done security scans daily while the area was being built. The staff was good, but this cursebreaker was the best.

Mr. Gray did not leave his room until he managed to clamp down tightly on his emotions. That turned out to be around 3 P.M. In the eleven months he lived in the Department before his first journey through time, Mr. Gray had become an expert at both occlumency and legilimency. This was a true test of his skill.

The cursebreaker completed his scan just before dinner. He had found three very well hidden scrying devices. One of the devices seemed to be goblin design, a crystal wrapped in three different types of wire. The second device was a very thin sheet of wood with a set of runes burned into it. The third was simply a white-ish stick, like a coffee stirrer but made of some unidentifiable substance. It could have been a white metal, ivory, ceramic, or a very smooth wood. Their identification spells simply couldn't classify it. The cursebreaker was taking the three monitoring devices back to his shop to read their magical signatures and determine who was operating them.

Two days passed with no word from the cursebreaker. He was supposed to respond within 24 hours. Mr. Gray and three security personnel went to the man's office. The office's security wards were down and the door was unlocked but the office seemed undisturbed. They stepped into the back room, the cursebreaker's workshop, and they found him slumped over his workstation with no head. His head had been cleanly severed and cauterized - no blood whatsoever had been spilled.

Mr. Gray looked over the cursebreaker's notes while the three security people carefully inspected the area for clues as to who had ended the cursebreaker.

The notes indicated that the goblin-looking device was indeed being operated by a goblin. Unfortunately, the cursebreaker hadn't been able to determine the identity of the goblin in question. It was no surprise that the goblins had "bugged" the facility. They had created it and almost always left a scrying device in facilities that they created. Their regular customers knew to expect it.

The second device, the wooden sheet of runes, had been created by and was being operated by Albus Dumbledore; it had been emplaced by Nymphadora Tonks. That was much more worrisome than the goblin device. The security on the place while it was being built had been some of the most secure that the Department had. No one should have been able to penetrate the facility's defenses, but the metamorphmagus Tonks had. Apparently Tonks was a much better spy than the Department had given her credit for. The team would need to deal with Dumbledore and his lackeys soon.

As for the third device - it was missing, and there were no notes about it. It was as if the device had never existed. The security people verified it, which made that device's owner the most likely suspect in the cursebreaker's murder.

Mr. Gray sent two of the Unspeakable security detail to report the crime to the Aurors, while Mr. Gray and the third security person returned to the Department with the devices and the notes. There would be no evidence of the Unspeakables' involvement in this murder.

That evening, Mr. Gray had an epiphany on what their next step regarding Dumbledore should be. The epiphany was like when he had realized that Voldemort could read his thoughts, or when he had realized how to save the staff members he had seen die.

Alastor Moody was lying helpless at the bottom of his own trunk, prisoner of the disguised Barty Crouch Jr. Mr. Gray couldn't rescue him for fear of changing the timeline, but the team could heal Moody a bit, and they could interrogate him. It was their best chance to uncover some of Dumbledore's secrets.

Obviously, their incursion had to be done before the day of the third task. The first issue was how to get into Hogwarts without being detected.

Again, the answer was obvious. Mr. Gray would wait for the next Hogsmeade weekend and would glamour himself to look like the young Harry Potter. As long as his younger self was off the grounds, anyone that saw the glamoured Mr. Gray - including the Hogwarts portraits - would be fooled. Likewise, anyone reading the Marauders' Map would be fooled. Mr. Gray just had to avoid Dumbledore, the fake Moody, and the Hogwarts elves.

Mr. Gray discussed the plans with the team elves to see what they knew of the Hogwarts' elves detection abilities.

21 February 1995, Department of Mysteries

Within a week, the team was mostly settled in. Everyone was unpacked and the team had started building the imager.

In that week, Mr. Gray had contracted a team of goblins to install special portals on each entryway to the Riddle Response Team's area in the Department. These portals acted like the Thieves' Downfall in Gringotts, except without the waterfall. No more spies would be infiltrating the area.

With development of the imager progressing, Mr. Gray knew that he could delay no longer. It was time for The Talk.

After breakfast on the morning of the 21st, Mr. Gray called a post-breakfast meeting of the team. Croaker and Bode were attending, even though they weren't officially on the Riddle Response Team.

As breakfast ended, people filed into the meeting room. Croaker and Bode were sitting behind a table at the front of the room facing the rest of the chairs. Mr. Gray stood in front of the table.

Once everyone was seated, Mr. Gray spoke.

"I have some very important information to share with you. This is personal information, so I am loathe to share it."

Mr. Gray turned his back to the team. He took off his Unspeakable robe and laid it on the table.

This was it.

He turned back around to face the team.

"My name is Harry James Potter. I'm a time traveler. The Harry Potter that's at Hogwarts right now is a younger version of me."

The room was dead quiet except for Mr. Gray's - Harry's - voice. Every person on the team was in shock and completely still.

"In June 1995, after the third task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, the followers of Voldemort completed a ritual to give him a new body. I barely escaped the site of his resurrection alive.

"After the school term ended, I returned to my magic-hating relatives. Dumbledore compelled everyone who knew me to keep me in the dark regarding what was going on in Magical Britain.

"On my birthday - July 31st - Dumbledore sent a team to retrieve me and take me to a safe house, where I would have been just as slave-driven and just as sheltered.

"I chose instead to seek help. I met Mr. Gray and he took me to this facility, where I trained and underwent rituals to weaken and eventually destroy Voldemort.

"In July 1996, the project was completed and Mr. Gray closed the books. As his last action as team leader, he revealed his identity to me, and sent me back to October 1994 to become him.

"So here I am. Any questions so far?"

Everyone except Croaker and Bode was still too shocked to say anything.

"The scar that used to be on my forehead was the key to reaching and defeating Tom Riddle and everyone wearing a Dark Mark. Because it was a link to Voldemort, touching the scar was extremely dangerous. I saw people - some of you - die. We three", Harry said, pointing to himself, Croaker, and Bode, "hope to avoid those deaths, but to allow Mr. Potter to think they're dead. Our plan to keep anyone from dying has a good chance of working, but it's not foolproof.

"That's why you need to decide, here and now, if this is all worth the risk. As you can see, I am not the scrawny boy currently competing in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. By allowing the team to use my scar, I gained an incredible boost in physical, mental, and magical power."

Harry gave a bit of a smirk and said, "I also got a job as an Unspeakable." That elicited a tiny bit of laughter, and broke the ice a bit with the stunned group.

After a brief pause, Harry continued, "The other survivors gained a lot of pay and benefits, and knowledge that they may not ever be able to use or speak of.

"We did it," Harry said emphatically. "We fought and won a war with no one getting hurt except the ones who wanted to start the war and victimize Magical Britain. The public will probably never know that the war almost happened."

Again pointing at himself, Croaker, and Bode, Harry finished his speech by saying, "Please let one of us know today if you're in or if you're out. Thanks."

With that, Harry once again donned his robe, and Mr. Gray left the room. Most everyone else left immediately thereafter, but a few stayed to discuss the revelation.

Author's Notes:

As always, thank you to those who have reviewed, favorited, or followed the story.

originally published: 5 July 2017

last updated: 12 February 2019