"Croaker Get in here!" an annoyed voice echoed down the corridor from the direction of the Head Unspeakable's office.
Sighing Saul Croaker carefully placed the minuscule hourglass on the workbench in front of him. He then pressed his wand tip to the silver rune that was etched into the desktop directly in front of the hourglass he had just set down.
As soon as his magic was pushed into the rune, a red semi-transparent dome about a foot in diameter formed over the delicate yet very dangerous time-Turner prototype protecting it from being removed by anyone other than himself.
With another sigh, Saul made his way out of his tiny lab. The room was plain with windowless stone walls, and a bare stone floor and was only furnished with a desk that was currently covered in parchments full of his calculations and a workbench that had all of his tools scattered across it. It was a glorified broom cupboard at best but it was his.
Croaker knew the higher-ups never really expected his Time-Turner idea to work which is why they gave him the glorified broom closet to work in instead of one of the larger labs like those weirdos that studied brains.
Saul didn't mind the tiny lab, it was more than enough for his purposes. He was getting close to having a working concept but he had yet to perfect the time sand mixture that would actually power up the device. He had run into a few problems with the magical sand but he was confident it was only a matter of time until he got the formula correct.
...Then again, he had thought that last time and the resulting explosion sent his boss to the infirmary for a week, he visibly winced at that memory.
Gathering his thoughts, Saul stepped into the head unspeakables' office, feeling even more confused when realised that half of the senior staff were shouting over one another in front of Head Unspeakable Krammer's desk.
"Croaker have you done any Chrono testing in the past two hours?" Krammer barked as soon as he spotted Saul standing in the doorway.
"No sir, I haven't done any testing in the last week. My prototype isn't ready for a second test yet," Croaked swiftly replied.
"Damn! We had better send a team to Nottingham, and make it quick, Boggs!" the boss exclaimed, looking at the unspeakable to his immediate right.
Boggs who was head of their field teams hurriedly left the office to carry out his boss's implied order, giving his superior a curt, "I'm on it, sir."
"What's going on, sir?" Croaker questioned, wondering if he would get an answer, or be told to go back to work.
"At 17:42 a magical disturbance was picked up five hundred meters or so outside of Nott Manor in Nottingham. The signature was similar to the readings our diagnostic equipment picked up on your last test only several hundred magnitudes stronger!" Kramer answered before letting out a frustrated sigh.
Of all the things Croaker expected to hear, that was not one of them.
"So we might have a time traveler, or it could mean that one of my tests will work sometime in the future," Croaker put forth hopefully, an edge of excitement in his voice at the prospect of his time travel experiment being successful.
Kramer gave his subordinate a look of disgust at the statement and scowled before finally issuing a threat that had Croaker shaking under his hooded unspeakable robes.
"If it is one of your tests and you were foolish enough to risk the safety and secrecy of this office by testing outside of this building, I will personally toss your past and future selves through the fucking veil! Now stick around, the field team won't be long and we'll know whether or not you can go for a trip to the Death Chamber or get back to work!" Kramer snapped, clearly not in a very forgiving mood this morning.
Croaker paled at that statement and realized he should have kept his mouth shut. With a prayer, he hoped whatever this was, wasn't his fault after all his lives were at stake and that was a very unsettling way to begin this Friday.
'Well if I make it through today, I'll never bitch about Mondays again,' Croaker thought to himself as he waited for the field team to return.
/C.o.t.R\
N ott Manor, 500 m. outside Wardline, Nottingham, 6/19/1970, 1 7:45
With a groan, Harry slowly came back to consciousness. He could tell that he was laying on the ground and could feel a slight breeze on his face. He was pretty sure he was in the forest as he could feel what he guessed were roots digging into his back. Cracking open his eyes, he saw that he was lying at the base of a towering oak tree.
With a lot more effort than should be needed, Harry rolled over and tried to push himself up. He got as far as his knees before he was too tired to go any further and fell backwards on his ass, the back of his head striking the trunk of the oak tree.
Sighing in frustration, Harry reached into his grey robe and pulled out a vial of strengthening potion and downed it in one go, followed by a pepper up, and then a pain reliever potion.
Again he tried to get up and this time succeeded in standing up though he still felt the strain in his muscles and was forced to brace himself with the tree to his left hand as he waited for the dizziness to pass.
Drawing his wand Harry attempted to perform a tempus spell only to feel extremely dizzy to the point he nearly fell over. As Harry tried to catch his breath he was hit with a wave of nausea and felt an intense pain radiating from the centre of his chest.
Looking down at the area the pain originated from, Harry saw a perfect circle burnt out of his supposedly indestructible robes. Harry could see bare skin through the hole which, meant that whatever had burnt through his unspeakable robes had burnt through the dragon hide vest he wore underneath it as well.
What was even stranger was that there was a weird symbol that was branded into his flesh showing up a dark pink colour that contrasted against his pale skin tone.
The symbol was definitely runic and resembled the letter 'V' superimposed over the letter 'A'. The crossbar line on the 'A' stuck out past the symbol on both sides and had a tiny circle at each end of it.
His examination of this strange new tattoo was brought to an end when Harry heard multiple pops sounding all around him.
Harry instinctively brought up a shield charm as he saw hooded figures come into view, only to collapse as everything went black.
/C.o.t.R\
D.o.M, Ministry of Magic, 6/19/1970 18:15
The chime sounded through the Department as the wards recognized the field team's return. Kramer and the other others hurried to the apparition point as the seven-man field team appeared.
The unspeakable in the middle had an unconscious man over his shoulder and Croaker's heart hit his stomach when he saw that the man they had brought back wore unspeakable grey hooded robes.
'Please don't be me! please don't be me!' Saul thought frantically as he waited with bated breath.
"Take him to interrogation room three, disarm him, restrain him and let me know when he wakes," Boggs barked to the man carrying the unconscious Prisoner.
"Yes Sir," The unspeakable replied, before hurrying to carry out his orders.
"Boggs report!" Kramer demanded as soon as his subordinate left with their new prisoner.
"We arrived at the coordinates and the man was standing there in a clearing. He reacted to our arrival and tried to cast a shield charm but collapsed. We searched the area and only found some empty potion bottles and this," he held up a little zip-lock bag with a spun glass sphere inside.
Croaker stepped forward so he could get a good look at the sphere. It was made of clear glass like a prophecy orb and had charcoal-black scorched runes all over its surface. It was filled with what appeared to be black sand that filled most of its core.
"We took some readings on the sphere and the Chrono magic definitely originated from it. The man we captured had a perfectly circular hole in his robes and this symbol burnt into his flesh," Boggs elaborated before pointing to the only readable Rune on the surface of the sphere.
The rune Boggs pointed to looked like an 'A' superimposed over a 'V' with a circle on each end of the horizontal line for the 'A'.
"Well, this day got a lot more interesting. Croaker, I want you to analyze this sphere. Tell me what the hell it does and try and figure out what the rune means!" Kramer ordered.
"Well the rune is a power source rune, I am familiar with it because my time turners utilize the same rune. This particular rune draws power from the user's magical core to power any device it's incorporated into. In this case, it uses that energy to charge the sand otherwise the sand wouldn't travel five minutes backwards before its own magical energy was used up."
"This sphere itself contains de-energized time sand," Croaker said, then he stopped talking to begin running scans on the sphere, before adding.
"Yes, this was definitely a time device and the fact that our boy in there is collapsed with apparent magical exhaustion leads me to believe he traveled a great distance through time," Croaked stated confidently.
Apparently, someone figured out how to make the time sand absorb and channel energy. In his head, Croaker always imagined time sand working like an engine, the magical energy drawn into it from the user would work like gasoline, keeping the sand's natural magic charged. Of course, the time sand would consume the user's energy the farther it traveled back in time, so it would still be fairly limited as to how far back a person could go.
According to his calculations, a normal wizard's core could theoretically power time sand enough to travel a few decades back in time, though said wizard would likely die from magical exhaustion on a trip that far.
'If only I could figure out the right medium to bind with the natural sand and act as a conduit without it blowing up, I could make a more accurate assessment,' Croaker lamented to himself as Boggs and Kramer had a whispered discussion.
Kramer's thoughts were interrupted when the man that had taken the prisoner away, returned and stood in front of Boggs waiting to be acknowledged.
"What is it, Frank?" Boggs barked when he noticed his teammate.
"Sir I can't remove his robes, his gloves, hood, or even his bloody boots. They all have some pretty powerful protective enchantment, I nearly got blasted across the room when I tried removing his hood," Frank said sounding perplexed.
"Is he at least restrained!?" Boggs scowled as he looked in his subordinate's direction.
"Yes sir but the magical suppressors burnt out so only physical restraints seem to work," Frank admitted as he lowered his hood, his brown eyes showing the confusion he felt.
"Burnt out?!" Boggs exclaimed as he removed his own hood so he could look Frank in the eye.
"Yes sir, the prisoner is drawing magical energy into him, I've never seen anything like it," Frank said.
"How the hell is he drawing magic into him?! Kramer demanded
"I don't know sir but he is getting stronger by the minute. I've done three scans of his core and It is replenishing at an accelerated rate. He already has fifty percent of his core and climbing at about one to three percent a minute, it's almost like he's drawing magic from the building, sir," Frank explained.
"How can you scan his core if he's wearing protective robes?" Kramer snorted, sounding skeptical.
"Something burnt a hole through his robes, it's directly above his core so I cast the spell there," Frank answered, shooting the head unspeakable a look of annoyance.
"Did you take a reading before you brought him here?" Kramer asked as he lowered his own hood.
"Victoria did, she said that he had a reading of less than one percent," Boggs answered.
"That may be for the best. The sooner he wakes up, the sooner we can interrogate him," Kramer said unconcernedly.
"T-the magic build-up isn't the most worrying part Sir. His core is humongous, like Dumbledore level humongous. If he wants to leave we won't be able to stop him, sir," Frank stammered out and there was no mistaking the look of concern on his features.
Boggs paled at this revelation, while Krammer pointed his wand at the ceiling and activated the lockdown wards and started barking orders to the Greycloaks to ward the interrogation room to keep their prisoner contained.
/C.o.t.R\
D.o.M, Ministry of Magic, 6/19/1970 19:00
"His core is now fully charged, sir," Victoria said nervously to Kramer.
There was a semi-circle of grey cloaks with wands drawn facing the man bound to a chair, the room was sealed and Kramer had his best people arranged in front of the door.
"Ow fucking hell!" The bound man groaned as he slowly began to stir.
The heart rate of everyone in the room went up as the prisoner woke up, the unspeakable's because now something was about to happen, and Harry's because he realized he was restrained to a chair and surrounded by armed men.
Harry woke with a start and tried to rub his aching temples only to realize that his arms were restrained to the armrest of the chair he was sitting in.
"Where the hell am I?" he asked croakily as the room came into focus.
"We ask the questions," Kramer stated menacingly.
"Right, go ahead and ask but I'm you had better tell me where the fuck I am," Harry shot back.
"Who are you and why are you here?" Kramer asked, ignoring the prisoner's rebuttal.
"Reaper and I don't know where the Fuck is here. Now tell me where the fuck I am and who you are before I get angry," Harry stated with an edge of menace to his own voice.
"CRUCIO!" Kramer hissed and aimed at the circle burnt into the prisoner's robes as it was the only exposed flesh on the man's body.
Harry convulsed as if electrically shocked, pain ripping through his sore body but he didn't utter a sound as he pulled up his Occlumency shields to try and control his pain receptors and channeled his magic into his hands.
Kramer released the curse, beads of sweat now dripping down his forehead from the exertions he put into the spell in an attempt to get a reaction out of the prisoner. Panting slightly, Kramer vaguely noticed the rune on the man's chest had started to glow a faint blue.
"Why did you travel through time to the year nineteen-seventy? If that robe is anything to go by, you know where you are. So stop fucking with me and answer my questions or you will feel a lot more than just a Cruciatus!" Kramer growled as he glared at the prisoner.
While Kramer was talking Harry was processing what he had heard. He couldn't have heard that right. How could he be in Nineteen-seventy?! That kind of time travel was thought to be impossible.
Though when he thought about it more, Harty realized he shouldn't be too surprised. The information that they had gotten from Astoria Greengrass was that the Serpents Vengeance was attempting to create a time-travel device and it looked like they actually made one!
That thought aside, he had bigger problems at the moment. The unspeakable must have picked up on the magical signature of that Time Sphere and investigated. Harry vaguely remembered raising a shield before passing out. The unspeakables had caught him when he was weakened from the trip through time and brought him back to the D.o.M.
'I really hate unspeakables!' Harry thought to himself as he looked around the room and assessed his predicament.
Harry also knew how the unspeakables interrogate prisoners. It usually went in a pattern; pain, pain, legilimency, pain, pain, veritaserum, more pain, and repeat.
"I'm not sticking around for that," Harry muttered to himself.
Harry was drawn from his thoughts when Kramer stopped talking. Harry smirked under his hood as Kramer raised his wand to cast the cruciatus curse again, he was really doing this by the book.
With a mighty push, Harry forced all the raw magic he had been building up into his hands since the first torture curse had struck a few minutes ago. Harry pushed it outward in a wave towards all the men standing around the room.
"CRU-
Magic rushed outwards from the prisoner's body, Kramer had just raised his wand and incanted the first syllable of the cruciatus curse before a wave of raw magic slammed into him.
He and every other person surrounding the prisoner was thrown into the stone walls of the tiny interrogation room with tremendous force.
Waves of pain reverberated through Krammer's body and black spots swam in his vision as he struck the wall at unbelievable speed. He cracked his head upon landing on the floor and was very close to losing consciousness.
Krammer vaguely heard surprised shouts and snapping of bones followed by pitiful moans from his comrades, as they too were tossed like ragdolls around the interrogation room and slammed into the stone walls.
Harry stood from his chair, the restraints vaporized by the wave of magic he had released. This technique was very imprecise, but in a confined space like this, it was very effective.
All around the room, groaning or unconscious unspeakable lay on the floor. With a smile, Harry made his way toward each one stunning them before they could get their bearings. Only his interrogator had enough awareness to try and raise his wand but in his injured state, he was too slow. The head unspeakable slumped unconscious when Harry's stunning spell struck home.
'Well, let's get this done with,' Harry thought to himself as he went around the room obliviating his presence from the unspeakables' minds.
When he reached his interrogator, Harry took the time to peruse the man's mind to learn what wards were in place around this room.
Once done, Harry obliviated him just like he had done with the others.
When he was satisfied that all memories but one were erased from Kramer's mind, Harry pulled out his Invisibility Cloak from his robes and crept from the room.
/C.o.t.R\
Muggle London, 6/19/1970, 19:04
Getting through the D.o.M lockdown wards was laughably easy. Hell, they taught him how to do it (in the future of course) but the wards they had now were pathetic compared to when he came from. After slipping out of the rotating hallway, Harry made his way up to the atrium still hidden under his invisibility cloak.
Once on the street, he ducked into the public loo that would one day be the entrance to the ministry and changed into some muggle clothes.
He was now wearing his P.T clothes which consisted of cargo-style camo trousers and a tight-fitting black tee shirt. He had kept his ministry issue dragon hyde combat boots as they looked muggle enough.
Dressed like a soldier (which he kinda was) Harry blended in well enough He certainly had the build of a soldier fresh out of boot camp, Harry stood six foot tall, he had a lean muscular build, and his hair was cut high and tight so he didn't get a second look from the muggles as he walked down the street, well maybe a few from the women but he easily fit right in in the muggle world.
Harry was immensely thankful for Hagrid giving him that mokeskin necklace pouch for his seventeenth birthday. He had found out how truly valuable that was years ago. Harry always kept a shrunken down multi-compartment trunk loaded with: clothes, weapons, a tent, food, a broom, potions, and a sizeable amount of gold on his person at all times in case of emergency... like now.
Harry swiped a paper from the muggle newsstand, on his way towards Charring Cross and confirmed he was in fact in the year nineteen seventy.
Harry was making his way to the Leaky Cauldron, he needed to consult the goblins so he could begin to figure out what he was going to do next.
After that, he would begin looking into why he had traveled thirty-four years into the past.
Harry wasn't sure what the fuck was going on but he did know with certainty that there was no going back. The second he entered this timeline, his future ceased to exist or that was the prevailing theory amongst the unspeakables.
As Harry approached the familiar pub, he prepared himself for many tedious hours in the goblin bank.
Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley, London, 6/19/1970, 21:30
Getting out of the cart that he had taken to his new vault, Harry followed the goblin back to the bank's lobby, his business here almost complete.
Harry was now fifty-thousand galleons and some change poorer, not to mention the one-hundred and twenty-five thousand galleons he had deposited in his new vault but he was pleased nonetheless.
Once he arrived at the bank a few hours ago, Harry had asked to speak with an account goblin in order to set up a proper identity and lease a vault.
From there he had been led to the office of a very old goblin by the name of Long-Blade.
After explaining what he needed, Long-Blade had given him a toothy grin and assured him that Gringotts could easily solve his problem... for a small fee.
Harry had readily agreed and Long-Blade had begun the process of creating Harry's new identity from scratch.
His new name had been legally and magically changed to Hadrian Ignotus Evans. He had tried to take the name Peverell but there were two others in this time period who took primacy, James and Fleamont Potter. He could of course claim either name as was his blood right but the head of house Potter would be notified, and that would definitely draw unwanted attention.
Long-Blade had also begun the process to create an official birth certificate. On his new birth certificate, Harry had kept his original birthday but altered his birth year to reflect his true age, which meant he was now born in nineteen forty-seven.
After that, Harry had given Long-Blade the transcripts from his original O.W.L and N.E.W.T exams which he kept in the paperwork section of his trunk. Longblade had backdated his transcripts three-plus decades and filed them with the ministry to establish his educational history. This would make things much easier if he ever needed to find employment since he wouldn't have to go back to the ministry and retake all of his exams.
The last document Harry needed was an apparition license which the goblins were more than happy to arrange for him... for another small fee.
Harry did this more for convenience than anything else since getting an apparition license would require a trip to the ministry. Once he had a birth certificate, he could acquire everything else he needed on his own. That being said, he had no interest in going back to the ministry if he could avoid it.
Once he had paid the required fees, Longblade had sent all of these documents off to one of his contacts inside the ministry department of records.
Within an hour of sending off the documents, Harry received an official confirmation letter.
Mr Hadrian Evans,
On behalf of the Ministry of Magic, I would like to welcome you to magical Britain. I am writing to inform you that your paperwork has been submitted to the ministry archives successfully. As of this moment, you are officially a citizen of The British Magical Community. If you have any questions feel free to write to my office or come by in person.
Hoping you are well,
Herman Jones
Overseer of Magical Documents
Ministry of Magic
Harry was still a bit amazed at how fast the ministry had processed his paperwork. He supposed that he should be grateful for Ministry corruption otherwise the process would have taken months.
After he had an established identity, Harry signed a lease on a small vault under his new name so that he could store some of the gold from his trunk and start collecting interest from it.
He was just grateful that he always kept a sizable amount of gold in his trunk for emergencies. There were around two hundred and fifty thousand Galleons in there ensuring he would always have gold should he need it.
Truthfully, if he could have stored more gold in his trunk, he would have. Sadly the expansion charm on his trunk had a limit to what it could store and still be shrinkable. So all he had to his name was a measly quarter million galleons.
Still, he wasn't rich at the moment, but he knew that there was a goldmine slumbering away in the chamber of secrets that he would soon exploit.
With this in mind, Harry requested Long-Blade to get him a list of available properties in England. He spent quite a while going through a thick folder filled with information on properties that were available through the bank.
Luckily, most of the properties listed were muggle so the prices for most of them were well under his budget.
Flipping through the very detailed descriptions of homes that fit his criteria, Harry finally found one he really liked. It was a three-bedroom house and a few outbuildings with a hundred acres of land in the county of Durham.
The price of the home was Thirty-thousand Galleons plus another eight thousand for standard warding over the main house and three acres of land surrounding it.
Harry had originally planned to have the goblins ward the entire property but that would have cost more than what he paid for it.
After storing a goodly amount of gold in his new vault he was ready to get out of Gringotts, All he needed was to sign the closing papers for his home at the main desk and pick up his new keys. Harry was thinking of other problems he would need to solve soon as he walked toward the lobby. One set of problems solved he chuckled to himself, and now he knew how much it cost to set up a new life in the wizarding world.
'New Identity fifteen-thousand galleons.
New home thirty-thousand galleons.
Warding eight-thousand galleons.
New vault twenty-five galleons a month.
Finally getting to leave Gringotts... PRICELESS!
He had now solved the last of his immediate problems and could start thinking about how he ended up in this time period, to begin with.
He already knew it had something to do with the orb Greengrass had hurled at him but he had never heard of a device powerful enough to travel years back in time, much less decades.
Traveling backwards in time was relatively simple with the right instrument as everything about the past was already known. A person going backwards in time knew what to expect since events had already happened and were not subject to change unless directly interfered with.
The future, on the other hand, was fluid each step he took since arriving in the past changed this new future in some way. Moving forward in time was not feasible as the future he returned to wouldn't be the one he left behind anyway.
More importantly, it wasn't possible to travel forward in the first place. Magical technology hadn't advanced enough in two thousand and four to go forward in time. Hell, the time turner wasn't invented until nineteen seventy-one so there was little chance of him returning (even if he wanted to).
In any event, it would be inadvisable to try and return to his time. As Hermione had once told him, "horrible things have happened to wizards who meddle with time".
Harry was surprised that being stranded in the past didn't bother him very much. He knew there was no going back to his timeline and he wasn't sure if he was sad or thrilled by this fact.
Harry was pulled from his wandering thoughts when Long-Blade spoke to him, sounding almost annoyed. Harry was surprised to realize they were standing at the counter in the bank's lobby.
"Is there any other business you wish to handle Mr Evans?" Long-Blade asked as he gestured to the deed for Harry's property and a blood quill lying next to it on the marble counter.
Harry picked up the blood quill and started signing as he answered his accountant.
"No Long-Blade, I believe I have spent enough time here this evening. I will contact you about a possible sale soon enou-"
Harry was cut off by a hysterical shriek coming from a woman two tellers to his left, he jerked his hand in surprise so badly that the final flourish of his signature extended to the main body of the deed. Which meant he had a huge bloody line across his forearm courtesy of the Quill mirroring his signature.
He felt the familiar sting the blood quill always left behind before his signature vanished from his wrist and forearm, the paper flashed blue and Harry turned to find the source of the commotion completely forgetting about Long-Blade.
/C.o.t.R\
Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley, London, 6/19/1970, 22:07
Andromeda Tonks was having a very bad day. It had all started when she had gone to St Mungo's for a health check. After three weeks of morning sickness, she had gotten worried something was seriously wrong with her.
She had been relieved to learn she was perfectly healthy. The unusual symptoms she had been experiencing were caused by something she wasn't expecting. Andromeda was two months pregnant!
Andromeda was ecstatic and couldn't wait to share this news with her husband and she rushed down to the floor below where her husband was working as a trainee Healer. She thought this news that he would soon be a father would make for a nice surprise.
Andromeda was smiling from ear to ear as she made her way down the stairs and stepped off of the fourth-floor landing and into the Janus Thickey spell damage ward.
Upon making an inquiry with the receptionist she found that Ted was in the break room and that he was on his lunch break for the next twenty minutes.
Unfortunately, this is where her day took a turn for the worst.
Andromeda had followed the receptionist's directions and soon arrived in front of an oak door with a brass placard affixed to the door at eye level.
Employees Only
Ignoring the placard, Andromeda pushed the door open only to freeze in shock at the sight before her.
A man Andromeda easily recognized as her husband of three was standing by the couch facing away from her.
The part that left her gaping was the fact that his trousers were dropped to his knees as he thrust his hips back and forth with vigor, his bare bum on full display.
Andromeda assumed there was a woman with him, judging by the moaning sounds rising and falling in tandem with his thrusts. She could only make out the woman's legs since they were spread slightly wider than Ted's.
It appeared that his 'partner' was bent over the back of the couch in front of him and she was moaning like a Knockturn Alley whore every time he slammed his hips forward.
Andromeda stood frozen in shock at the sight before her as she fully processed what it was that she was seeing.
Ted was cheating on her, there was no mistaking that but she couldn't understand why he would do something like this to her.
She had given up everything to be with him. Her family had disowned her, her sisters had stopped speaking to her, and her older sister had even threatened to kill her the next time they met!
Andromeda was shunned by the other Purebloods families and a running joke amongst the darker families. She was known as the disgraced daughter of the Black family.
She had never cared what others thought of her, being with the man that she loved was worth it as far as she was concerned.
Her shock quickly disappeared and a new much more volatile emotion overtook her... Rage.
'I'm not going to let him get away with this! He and his little whore are going to pay!' Andromeda thought viciously as her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared.
Her thoughts were interrupted by what to her ears was the sound of Ted's treachery reaching its crescendo as they both reached their release.
Ted and his partner both seemed to be panting as they came down from orgasmic bliss, neither of them aware that they were seconds away from a very painful reckoning.
The woman pushed herself upright causing her robes to drop back down and cover her modesty before she turned to face Ted.
Andromeda supposed the woman was pretty enough if a tad short standing about somewhere around five feet tall. She was busty bordering on chunky with short curly blonde hair and light blue eyes. Her face was plain with a tiny button nose and slightly crooked teeth. Her nametag Mariam Strout was the last thing Andromeda noticed before Strout noticed her.
Andromeda's felt her ire rise when Strout's blue eyes widened in dawning horror. The woman's face seemed to drain of all colour as Andromeda stared her down, her eyes narrowed in barely restrained fury as she drew her wand from her waist holster.
By this time, Ted had succeeded in pulling up his pants and seemed to sense his lover's distress. He turned around to see what Mariam was staring at only to be met with his wife's murderous glare directed at him and the woman beside him.
Judging by the tight line of her lips, her narrowed eyes almost glowing with malice, and her rigid posture, his wife was livid.
Even more troubling was the fact that she had her wand held so tightly in her hand that her knuckles stood out white causing making a sharp contrast to her olive skin.
He suddenly had a haunting memory of Bellatrix back in his fifth year when she had caught him with her sister coming out of a broom closet. The only difference he could see was Andromeda had dark chocolate brown hair while her sister had raven hair. Other than that, Andromeda looked just as terrifying as her older sister right now.
"Well husband, I hope I'm not interrupting your break?" Andromeda asked her voice calm and dripping with sarcasm.
Andromeda's deadly calm voice sent a chill of fear down Ted's spine. He suddenly realized however different she may seem to her family, she was still a Black at heart.
"I-I c-can explain Andy, i-it just sort of happened" Ted stammered out, fear starting to grip his chest.
Andromeda hissed and her wand was thrust upward faster than Ted thought humanly possible, she blasted Mariam into the wall behind her with tremendous force.
The woman didn't have time to react and crumpled into an unconscious heap, blood trickling from her forehead.
"It's a good thing you work in a hospital, Ted," Andromeda said coldly.
With that, she fired a castration hex that Ted barely avoided by jumping behind the couch to shield himself.
"Please Andy I'm sorry, it was a-
Ted was cut off from begging as the couch he was cowering behind exploded launching him into the wall next to his unconscious mistress.
"Don't Lie To Me! I saw you fucking her not two minutes ago! You unfaithful treacherous Mudblood!" She shrieked sounding very much like her sister at the moment.
Andromeda started sending spells at him. Ted was just able to roll away from the first before he tried to get to his feet intent on making a run for it. He had made it to a kneeling position when a nasty cutting curse sliced a deep gash across his lower stomach.
Ted screamed in agony and collapsed to the floor, his hands instinctively holding the wound tightly as he landed on his back so that he was now looking up at his enraged wife.
"Please Andy I'm sorry, Don't hurt me anymore" he begged her fearfully.
Andromeda stalked over to her fallen husband, the way she moved reminded him of a deadly predator moving in for the kill.
"I lost my family for you, I lost all of the friends I had. No Pureblood will look at me without disgust because I choose to be with you! You cheating bastard! I gave up everything for us and what do you do to repay me? I should kill you where you lay!" Andromeda shrieked her, voice getting progressively louder the longer she spoke.
Andromeda came to a stop and stared down at her unfaithful husband, she felt conflicted and wasn't sure if she could really go through with killing him or not.
Ted was frozen and seemed too scared to say a word. Sighing she forced herself to calm down with the liberal use of occlumency. As mad as she was she knew she couldn't, pureblood or not it would still likely see her sent to Azkabanand she had a baby on the way. Making a decision, Andromeda lowered her wand and slipped it back into her holster.
"We're through, Ted," Andromeda said without any emotion.
"W-what do you mean?" Ted gasped, looking to be in a tremendous amount of pain.
"I'm divorcing you," Andromeda answered as she removed the wedding band from her finger.
"You can't divorce me," Ted exclaimed as he tried to sit up only to flop back.
Andromeda watched dispassionately as he groan pitifully as the sudden movement aggravated the gash on his stomach. She waited until he had composed himself before she spoke.
"A pureblood can't get a divorce without her husband's consent. You are not a pureblood, you have no say in the matter," Andromeda corrected, feeling the slightest bit of vindictive pleasure at the despondent look that crossed his face as her words sank in.
"W-where will you go?" Ted asked, giving her a pleading look.
"That is none of your concern," Andromeda shrugged as she turned to leave before remembering why she came here in the first place.
"By the way, I'm pregnant. That's why I came to see you. I will have no problem getting full custody of our child as well," Andromeda said, her voice coming out almost robotic due to how much she had to employ her occlumency to keep from choking up.
"Andy please I promise it won't happen again, I swear please don't do this" Ted was begging now.
"I didn't do this, you did." She said coldly.
Holding back tears that were threatening to break free, Andromeda tossed her wedding ring at Ted before turning on her heel and leaving the room, her soon-to-be ex-husband's pleas falling on deaf ears.
/C.o.t.R\
Diagon Alley, London, 6/19/1970, 19:19
A teary-eyed Andromeda entered Diagon Alley and after walking around to calm herself, she went to her favorite place to think Fortescue's Icecream Parlor and ordered a double fudge sundae.
She sat at a table outside the shop and watched the alley emptying, it was a nice evening and it helped calm her as she watched people move around the wizarding district.
The fudge sundae and the summer air did help her to regain her composure somewhat. Unfortunately, her anger was the only thing keeping her from thinking about how much her life had changed in the last few hours.
She realized that she had no idea where she was going to go. She couldn't go back to her parent's house, she had burnt that bridge more nths ago. She doubted she would live through the night if she showed up on her father's doorstep.
She still had her trust vault so she could rent a room at the Leaky Cauldron for the night.
'I also have my personal account, so maybe it's not so bad,' Andromeda thought with a touch of optimism as she took another bite of her sundae.
She was pulled from her thoughts when she spotted a handsome extremely fit bloke dressed in a skin-tight tee and camo pants walking out of the Leaky Cauldron. She eyed him with interest as he made his way down the street before he eventually walked past her on his way to the bank.
Before she could get a view of his bum, she was confronted with the visage of her older sister's sneering face.
"What's a blood traitor like you doing showing your treacherous face here?" Bellatrix demanded as she towered over her.
"It's a public place, Trixie," Andromeda sighed before finishing her ice cream.
"Don't call me, Trixie!" Bellatrix hissed at her.
"What do you want?" Andromeda asked as she stood up and glared at her sister.
"You to stop disgracing our family name! First, you marry that disgusting mudblood Tonks and now I find you out here ogling another mudblood dressed in muggle rags!" Bellatrix shrieked drawing the attention of everyone in the vicinity.
"I was just enjoying my ice cream and the view. Why are you here bothering me anyway?" Andromeda asked coldly.
Before Bella could retort an even more unwelcome voice broke in.
"Don't speak to that worthless blood traitor Bellatrix, we have an appointment to keep. I'll deal with you soon enough, Andromeda," Cygnus Black stated, the last part obviously directed at her.
With a contemptuous scowl from her father and a sneer from her sister, her estranged family both away heading for Knockturn Alley if Andromeda was not mistaken.
Sighing in frustration, her mood once again ruined, Andromeda made her way towards Gringotts hoping what she was about to do wouldn't take too long.
'Might as well get this over with', Andromeda thought glumly.
/C.o.t.R\
Andromeda finally found an open teller and quickly handled the worst part of her reason for being here, signing her divorce papers.
The concept was very simple, the magical marriage is a bond sworn by an oath between two people, if the other person violates the oath then the party wronged gains primacy over the divorce proceedings. Since her husband' violated their marriage bond she was able to claim all their properties, and monies, and take full custody of any children they had as a result of the marriage.
Signing on the dotted line she actually felt the marriage bonds fall, it saddened her but life goes on.
"Now Ms Black how do you want the assets handled?" Pain Bearer asked, his quill poised and ready to take notes.
"All our vaults are mine as is custody of my unborn child, he can keep the flat," she stated simply.
"Very well any other business you wish taken care of?" the Goblin asked after writing down how the divorce was to proceed.
"Yes I need to no know my personal vault balance and my trust vault balance as well," she stated.
The goblin turned a few pages and then looked up at her
"Your trust fund was closed as of January first of this year. All monies contained within it were transferred to your joint vault as of March eleventh of this year after your marriage to Mr Tonks. Your balance then was twenty-five thousand galleons as of March eleventh, as of today there is twenty-two galleons nine Sickles and four knuts," the Goblin stated as he read the figures off of his ledger.
"WHAT!"Where did all my gold disappear too?!" Andromeda demanded, sounding hysterical even to her own ears.
Out of the corner of her eye, Andromeda saw the man she had been ogling earlier in the alley. He was looking over at her from two spaces down with an expression that conveyed both concern and a touch of annoyance.
"Answer me, where has all the money gone?" Andromeda hissed, feeling her temper starting to rise.
Paying no mind to the man staring at her, Andromeda thought about what she would do without any money. After signing the divorce papers, she was now homeless. That wasn't even considering she had a baby on the way.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the goblin clearing his throat.
"Ms Black according to our records, your ex-husband withdrew a thousand galleons almost every Friday since the second week of March. Unfortunately, we can not reclaim this money because it happened during the marriage and was in your joint account vault," Pain-Bearer stated calmly.
"If there is nothing else, I have other matters to attend to," Pain-Bearer said after she stood there staring off into space, her thoughts miles away.
Taking Andromeda's continued silence as confirmation she was done, the Goblin slid from his seat leaving only the man who was watching her and herself in the bank's lobby.
"Are you alright, miss?" The man asked her, snapping her out of her shock.
"I am perfectly fine, thank you," Andromeda said, her words not even convincing herself.
"Yeah pull the other one, I can tell you aren't fine," He said, not unkindly.
Andromeda scowled at that statement.
"Whether I am or not, it's certainly no concern of yours. Who the hell are you anyway?" she snapped.
"Harry Evans and I overheard your ex-husband drained your accounts," He stated calmly.
"It's rude to eavesdrop, why do you care anyway? Not much can be done about it now," Andromeda huffed, deflating before his eyes as tears finally fell from her own.
With a sigh, Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather pouch containing a few thousand galleons (his personal spending money) and pressed the pouch into her hands before walking past her toward the door.
He barely made it two steps before she asked him, "Why are you giving me this? You don't even know me."
"Looks like you need it," He replied over his shoulder as he walked through the door and exited the bank.
Andromeda stared at the door he had just stepped through for a few minutes before snapping out of her shock. Feeling the pouch in her hand, curiosity got the better of her and she gingerly untied the strings before pulling the pouch open.
Andromeda audibly gasped, there had to be well over three thousand galleons in there. For the first time that day she smiled at the kindness of a complete stranger.
' Who was this Harry Evans?" Andromeda wondered to herself as she made her way out of the bank.