The Department of Mystery's discovery of alternate dimensions in 1891 had been met, at first, with excitement. But once the investigation had gone further, every Unspeakable involved was filled with a growing horror- For 'alts', as they became known to those who dealt closely with them, were not created naturally by time branching on its own into all its infinite possibilities. No, alts were created solely by time travel. Anytime some clever young thing knew it hadn't gone this way and made it happen anyway, there was a split in time itself- which was becoming a massive web of tangled timelines with no sense of order or regulation. And of course the Ministry couldn't have that.

So the Temporal Investigations division was born, it's Agents assigned with the mind-churning task of keeping track of time travelers in their own reality, to stop them creating new realities, and occasionally(and very carefully) to explore the alts that already existed. Life in the Temporal Investigations unit in the Department of Mysteries had its own unique version of normal, where secrets were considered not only acceptable but absolutely essential, and tense structure was flexible out of sheer necessity. It even had its own set of baffling jargon. All the alts were assigned numbers and letters for the purpose of organizing something whose very nature defied linear organization, and all the senior Time Agents had long memorized the list. Between that and all the other little linguistic oddities, it usually took months for a new Unspeakable to catch onto the language and Lily Potter could not help but feel a little superior for speaking it so fluently.

Lily's job, mainly, was to keep the chaos of time travel and alternate dimensions neat, organized and efficiently run. She did not know it, but it was the fourth most difficult job in existence- the first being the man who runs the world government by consensus in one of the more extreme alts, and the fifth being the proud tradition of Icelandic naked dragon wresting(A sport pursued only by the mad or desperate.)

She was very good at her job.

In her office, Lily shuffled the papers on her grand oak desk, sipped her tea and waited for the next disaster to occur. It shouldn't be long now, she hadn't had one in hours. Absently, she reached forward and adjusted the little brass name plaque facing toward the door, which read:

Miss Chime

Head of Temporal Investigations 2033-2058

D.O.M, M.O.M, Britain

The dates on the plaque were specific to her department as most departments did not inform you of the year you would choose to retire in advance, but the rest was standard issue for the D.O.M. Her real name was an open secret in the office since being the daughter of a celebrity is not conducive to anonymity, but she stubbornly insisted on the use of her code name because code names were Protocol. And at times it was Protocol alone that drew the line between her unit being the thing which controlled the chaos, versus being the thing which caused it. Even with the rules in place, sometimes the difference blurred into something that she hoped rather than knew, and one of those times was just about to happen.

Her office door creaked open, and the instant she saw the look on the intern's face she knew the disaster she had been waiting for had arrived. She set the three dimensional causality matrix, used for the difficult task of visualizing the mess of timelines(though at this point she had it nearly memorized) and looked up into the panicked face of the fresh-from-Hogwarts young man code-named Mr. Willbe.

"I...Miss Chime?" Squeaked Willbe in tones of quiet dread. "I, er, have a problem."

"What have you done, Willbe?" She asked in her most forbidding voice, mostly out of a mischievous urge to see what would happen. Willbe gulped, eyes screaming distress signals that she paid no attention to.

"I've created an alt that isn't on the matrix." He said, closing his eyes in dread.

She groaned, rubbing her temples. "Willbe, you aren't even a real field agent. You just deliver messages to agents afield in the far alts. You've got a Homer," the D.O.M. slang for a homing portkey equipped to travel through dimensions, "which takes you to the agent, you give them an envelope while touching nothing and it blips you back out. You've even got boots charmed not to hurt bugs or plants, and your own magically provided air supply. How the hell did you manage to create an alt?"

He winced out the next words like they were trying to claw their way from his mouth. "...I saved someone's life."

"Willbe! That is bloody rule number two, second only to not messing with your own past! I thought I'd trained you better than that!" She burst out, highly scandalized. "Was it your long lost love or something? Because I'm not sure how much more of that I can take, it's bad enough having to interact with the personnel from the Love Department."

"No, definitely not." Willbe said with a small amount of distaste. "My Homer got hit with a stunner in 64L in the Grindlewald Wars, when I was giving a delivery to Agent Springs. I though it was fine, it blipped me right out again...only, the screen that tells me what timeline I'm in was blank. And the next place it took me, there was nobody there but a man bleeding out on the floor and I recognized him as a D.O.M. Time Agent from some of the alts-he's not one here, but he is in most of the C and D branches. I deliver to the C branches sometimes, so I just figured that was where I was and the next letter was for him. So when I saw him dying on the floor, I panicked, cast a bio-stasis charm and hit the emergency return button while holding onto him." Willbe looked at her fearfully, taking a deep breath before continuing.

"Then of course it should have been caught when I re-entered the department with him, but everyone is out on other cases so it was only Sally manning the check in point... And, well, she flipped and we cast a ton of healing charms and eventually figured out it was poison and gave him the antidote and..."

Figuring out where this was going, Lily groaned again. "And then when the emergency was averted, you finally remembered Protocol and did a temporal placement scan. And he wasn't from C, and he isn't an agent at all wherever you got him from. And you have only a vague idea where that was since the homer is damaged and the placement spell only tells you A or D or whatever, not the specific number of their branch, so you can't just put him back."

Willbe nodded miserably. "And now there's almost certainly another branch off that's not on the ministry matrix, which will have to be mapped in order to keep our calculations accurate. And I have no idea how to locate it."

"Ah yes. Another hunt for lost time-lines, just what I wanted this week." She muttered.

"There is also another problem." Willbe said timidly. "What should we do with the man I rescued? I can't put him back, and he's still knocked out, so I put him on the couch in the staff room."

Lily rubbed her temples again. "Merlin. I don't know, take his wand and hit him with an enervate, explain there's been a time accident and he's in the D.O.M. If he's an agent in a few realities, he should be reasonably bright and unlikely to panic. When that's done, send him in to me and I'll try to figure out what to do with him."

Willbe left the room with his shoulders slumped in disgrace, and Lily went back to her papers. She didn't look up from them until she heard raised voices yelling indistinctly and a loud bang coming from just outside her office. Leaping to her feet, finger on the release of the wand holster strapped to her arm, she cracked the door open slowly and peered suspiciously around the corner of a wall.

The tableau she saw made her goggle, and after twelve years in the Temporal Investigations Division, four of them as Head, Lily was not a woman accustomed to goggling.

"You will explain to me as succinctly as possible what the hell is going on, or I will curse this idiot into oblivion." Snarled a silken, deadly voice at a trembling Sally, who was sitting behind her desk in the reception area and looking like she might faint. The man who was doing the threatening held one wand to Willbe's throat and one clenched in his other hand, presumably Willbe's. Lily immediately felt about a thousand tiny bits of every emotion trying to escape her stomach via her mouth. Swallowing, she put on her Division Head face and walked easily around the corner.

"Damn it Willbe, if you had mentioned who it was I would never have told you to try and take his wand, even if he did look knocked out at the time." She drawled, looking coolly at the threatening man. His eyes widened and his face paled.

"Lily?" He asked, with hope and with pain.

She met his eyes. "A different one. You're here because the Department of Mysteries is mucking around with alternate dimensions and as you'd expect, there's been a mistake. One that has just saved your life, if I'm not mistaken. If you'll release my message boy and come into my office, I'll give you some more answers. Willbe's harmless, I promise. You could cream both him and Sally him in a duel anyway, so you might as well give him back his wand."

His eyes glittered at her, his face unreadable. Then, very slowly, he lowered his wand, stepped back and tossed Willbe's back to its owner without glancing at him. Willbe caught it backwards and stumbled sideways in relief. Sally burst into tears.

"Willbe, go fill out reports and start figuring out what you're going to tell Mr. Musterion about this whole mess. Oh yes you are doing it yourself, don't give me that look. Sally, go find a handkerchief and a cup of tea and come back when you're not hysterical. Mr. Snape, if you'll follow me?" She turned on her heal and walked back into her office without looking to see if he had followed. Sitting down in her big red leather chair, she watched him glide through the doorway, scanning the room efficiently but thoroughly within seconds and turning his eyes back to her.

"You can sit, if you'd like. You'll have a lot of questions, and unfortunately I will as well. We're not actually sure what reality you came from so I'll have to ask you about your history to determine how far away yours is from ours." She said briskly, trying not to stare at him. 'Merlin, why is my life so complicated?' she wondered. 'Well, because I'm the head of the bloody time travel department, that's why', she answered herself.

"I assume you intend to send me back?" He asked coolly. Perhaps he had determined that if she was not going to be emotional, he wouldn't either. Or perhaps he'd figured out she wasn't her grandmother. Whatever.

"That's a bit of a complication, actually. Willbe thinks he's caused a new reality to form when he saved you, one where you disappeared instead of your body being found. Which in your case will make more of a difference than you'd think. If that's the case we can't return you, and if we don't return you, that will be the case. Don't worry if you don't understand it, circular logic and time travel go hand in hand."

"I follow you perfectly. If do you return me there will be no new reality. Is that your plan?" He asked in an accusing voice. Clearly he had already guessed what that would entail. Lily shrugged and decided not to sugar coat her answer.

"To prevent the split, we'd have to kill you in exactly the way you would have died and pinpoint the exact time, reality and location to dump your body. If there isn't a new branch, finding the right time line would be nearly impossible. Over all, it's just easier and less bloody to fill out the papers for a new accidental time branch and a misplaced Severus." He briefly froze at the use of his first name, once again staring at her appearance as though stunned .

"Then what do you intend to do with me?" He asked, less hostile and more confused.

"No clue, this is all a terrible mess." She said, and smiled at him apologetically. He blinked, looking dazed. Oh, yes- she'd been told she had her grandmother's smile. She stopped smiling and kept talking. "It's not entirely up to me, but I'll have more influence over it than any other one person. My best guess is that they'll end up offering you a job in the Department of Mysteries under a standard unspeakable contract so you can't tell anyone about this department, and just let you stay here." She waived her hand vaguely around. "That's how we got two of old Herbie Bashwood the janitor, and that's the most similar situation to this that I can remember happening. The other option is finding the new branch, voluntary obviation and you just turning up alive where you were, and I'm not sure the Head of Mysteries will go for that because it could cause another split. Would you be opposed to starting life over in a new reality?"

Snape sat there wearing the face of someone mentally sorting through multiple time lines. He looked at her rather intensely and replied after less time than she would have expected, "There is nothing in my old reality I wish to go back to. I...once contemplated becoming an Unspeakable, before other events prevented it."

"I know. In the realities where you did join you've mostly worked the temporal division. Your code name is Mr Tick. I've met you a few times, you're very efficient. That'll count in favor of you being hired, if it's what you want. My code name is Miss Chime, by the way. I'd prefer that title in public." Her tone was friendly and professional, but in her head she was having a battle between not meeting his eyes so she wouldn't stare and it being unprofessional to avoid eye contact. Merlin, this was going to be complicated, even after she told him who she really was. And as for Lily, well, she had her own issues with this situation.

He cocked his head. "Is there already a Severus Snape working here, then?"

"No. You're dead here, died in the Battle of Hogwarts being bitten by a giant snake. Is that the same for you?" She said in a business like tone. He responded in like kind.

"Yes. In the Shrieking Shack." He gave a shudder, but it seemed to be one more of distaste than fear.

"Alright. That lines up with the temporal reading Willbe got from you. You seem to be from a very close reality to ours, the same main branch- the one we call A branch. But for confirmation, what did you do for a living?"

He shrugged and said expressionlessly, "I taught at Hogwarts School for sixteen excruciating years, the last of which was as headmaster though it was a sham."

"And I am assuming you were a Death Eater?"

He looked at her calculatingly and did not reply.

"If you weren't, you'd say no. Alright, Order member?" She continued.

He nodded stiffly.

"Feelings on Harry Potter?" She asked.

"An arrogant twit too-like his father. I wish I could have saved him." He said, staring into space, then blinked and asked with deadly seriousness, "Did the Dark Lord Fall?"

"Yes. He's gone." She replied succinctly.

Something in the man's frame seemed to relax, but she couldn't put words around what it was. After a moment, he looked up into her eyes and asked what she was sure was the real question he had wanted to know the instant he saw her.

"How is it possible for you to be here, Lily? Are you traveling forward in time, or are we in the past and you have simply memorized the future? If the realities are similar, why do you look visibly different? Are you the same Lily at all?" He was demanding by the time he reached the last question.

"No. I'm not. You're years into your future. I'm just a descendant of hers. Similar faces, same name, totally different people. I'm sorry if I raised false hopes. Lily Evens did not live here, either."

He looked at her with a face that did not show what he was feeling. After a long moment, he gave a miniscule shake of the shoulders and said in a more sneering tone, "So Potter did live, then?"

"Yes." She replied simply.

"Good." Snape said, looking deeply annoyed.

She thought about saying Harry was her father, but decided to wait until this Snape knew her a little better before making him aware of how closely related she was to someone he'd disliked. After all, he had a bad track record with the distinction between children and their parents.

"You know me as 'Mr. Tick', but you called me Severus. Is it not Department of Mysteries protocol to use only a code name?" Snape said suddenly. Of course he would have gone over the previous conversation with the new information to check for inconsistencies. She cursed mentally. From Lily Evens, his first name was perfectly acceptable- from herself, it required an explanation she wasn't sure how to give.

"It is. As Head of Temporal Investigations, I have known so many of you- Some so well and some so little, that it is hard to keep track." She said with a shrug.

"That reply leaves far more questions than answers." He pointed out, narrowing his eyes.

"I know, but I was hoping you'd accept it anyway. Is there any chance of you being satisfied with it?" She asked hopefully.

"No." He said haughtily.

"That is a pity, because it's not your business and I'm not going to tell you unless there is a reason you have to know. If you do stay with the D.O.M., not knowing secrets is a frustration you'll have to get used to. Is that still what you wish to do?"

He shrugged, letting the issue go for now. "I have little else to be doing here and no wish to return. Besides, I think I would find it interesting, which would be a pleasant change."

"Good. I'll let Willbe present the problem to the Head and when he's nice and upset, I'll swoop in to pitch the job recommendation as the solution in a pleasant, this-will -make-your-life-easier, I'm-doing-you-a-favor kind of way. Knowing old Musterion, it will work swimmingly. He's a force to be reckoned with, but one that's easy to steer." She said, smirking.

He looked at her with curious eyes. "You were not in Gryffindor." He stated. "But you are too warm for Slytherin. Ravenclaw?"

She shook her head and looked at him with a teasing smile and a raised eyebrow. "Always the Professor, so quick to judge by House. Maybe I shouldn't let you do it to me. I will say, however, that I was not a Ravenclaw."

He tilted his head very slightly to one side, intrigued. Before he could comment, she continued,

"But a bit more important than my old House is what to do with you for tonight. It's against protocol to leave non-Unspeakables in the Department alone for obvious reasons, so you can't stay here unless accompanied. And I'm sure they won't let you leave the Ministry before you're cleared to know the things you already do about this department. I have no wish to stay here over night, and the only person available who I could assign to it is Willbe. If you wanted to get past Willbe you just would. So I think we should go speak to Musterion before he leaves."

Snape nodded, getting to his feet. "Very well." He said.

They found Willbe in the hall, looking slightly green but determined.

"It's time, Willbe. You go in first for tactical reasons, I'll come in and smooth it over, and then Snape comes in and we sort it all out. Easy-peasy, done before dinner." Lily told him confidently. He tried to smile and nod and almost managed it, starting to walk towards the Department Head's office.