Her shoe only brushed the table, but it was enough to disturb the delicate silver instrument that Harry had been using to measure temporal resonance. The device toppled, its crystalline components shattering against the desk in a shower of silver dust and temporal magic. The dust scattered across the Tempus Anima Sphere, which began to pulse in Nym's hand with an increasingly intense light.
"Merlin's saggy—" Nym started to swear, but the rest of her words were lost as the sphere's surface began to crack just as a panicked Harry reached out to grab it. Tendrils of opalescent magical energy emerged from the glowing orb, wrapping around both of them.
Harry felt it as a tugging sensation behind his navel, akin to a portkey but not entirely. It was much more forceful, and it felt as though the pull originated from his soul instead of his physical form. As he reached out and grabbed both her hand and the sphere, it shattered.
The world around them began to fragment into shards before it dissolved into swirling patterns of light and shadow. Time and space bent for each other, becoming fluid instead of concrete realities. Both Harry and Nym felt as if they were being dissected and then recreated, their ears ringing and their eyes shut tight as they could do nothing but stand powerlessly. Throughout it all, they maintain a firm grip on each other, and both felt as if a connection had been created between them. None knew its nature, and it was beyond mere physical touch.
When the world coalesced around them once again, they were back in Harry's study, only it wasn't his study anymore. Gone were the carefully organized research materials and comfortable furniture. Instead, they stood in a room cluttered with discarded possessions. The dust was thick in the air and a sense of dark magic lingered in the corners like old cobwebs.
Harry thought he had gotten rid of all the darkness that once permeated the Black townhouse, but it felt as if all the darkness had returned with a vengeance.
"Did this room revert? I don't want the headache of sorting it all out again," Harry muttered as he looked around. It took him a moment, but he soon became aware that something was different with him. His body felt younger, leaner, and thrumming with the raw energy of newly matured magic. However, that was not where the changes ended.
"What the hell?" He muttered, looking at Nym, only she looked much younger than he'd ever seen her. His eyes showed her younger version, with her hair pitch black and her eyes wide in shock, but there was another sense assaulting his mind, and it let him feel her confusion and disorientation that he was feeling as well.
"Harry? What's happened?" Nym's voice was higher, younger, but still unmistakably hers. "I can… I can feel you. Your emotions. In my head. It's weird… Not in a bad way like Legilimency, more like…" She trailed off, her hand rising to her chest where an unfamiliar warmth pulsed within her in perfect sync with her heartbeat.
"It feels like an echo," Harry whispered, concentrating to piece everything together. "Or maybe a reflection. I can feel your magic too… It feels different. Not hostile or volatile, mind you, and not bad. It's like… compatible with mine."
They still held hands and as one, they both squeezed, their eyes widening as they turned to look at each other.
"What's going on?" Nym asked in shock.
"I've got no idea," Harry whispered, looking around. "This room… it's not exactly how I found it, but it's pretty close."
He began walking forward to where he knew the old Black family tree was depicted on an old tapestry, and what he saw there shocked him.
"Nym," he said faintly as she came closer, and as she saw the family tapestry, her eyes bugged out.
"What the fuck!?" She whispered in shock, and Harry could feel it through this new connection they shared.
"The temporal resonance must have interacted with the sphere's magic. When it shattered—"
"It threw us back in time," she finished, her hair rapidly cycling through numerous colors as she processed their situation.
"Not just that," Harry muttered. "This connection between us… I was studying souls. I think whatever happened bound our souls together in the process."
"Bloody hell, Harry!" She whispered, aghast. "You mean if I die then you die as well?"
"I guess," Harry replied, staring at her.
Suddenly, Nym felt humor flowing through their connection and her eyes widened when Harry let out a hysterical laugh, holding onto the wall. She did not know why but she joined in as well, and in no time, both of them were laughing like psychos.
They both could feel it now. Their magic was beginning to harmonize subtly, the bond stabilizing their emotional states. They didn't even realize that they were leaning against each other as their laughter subsided, and they made no move to pull away even when they turned back to the tapestry.
"So, this isn't a hallucination or a joke," she remarked, making him shake his head negatively. "We really traveled back in time."
"Looks that way from the tapestry, at least," he muttered.
"Well, we can find out easily," Nym replied and pulled her wand out. She cast a silent Tempus, and both their eyes widened when Harry felt a tug on his magic as well.
"That didn't come directly from me," she muttered, making him nod. The time shimmered in front of them, and as they saw it, the hunch was confirmed. They had indeed traveled back in time. However, they were shocked with how far it was.
"That's not all," Harry remarked, and Nym's eyes widened when his hair transitioned into various colors, before he did the same with his eyes, and soon, he was morphing his facial features at will.
"Merlin's tits," she whispered, fascinated. "So, we're sharing powers now as well."
"Looks like it," Harry replied, before adding teasingly, "I guess I'm better at this metamorph thing than you though."
"Don't get a big head," Nym replied. Harry responded by enlarging his head slightly, making her chuckle as he reverted it to its usual shape and size.
"This is all so confusing," she remarked, her eyes raking over the magical tapestry. The main line of the Blacks was there, self-updating, but there was no trace of her mother. Hell, there was no trace of her mother's parents either.
They had traveled over sixty years back in time.
-Break-
"This is..." Nym began once they had finally come to terms with the absolute mindfuck that their new reality was, and she quickly switched to sending her thoughts through their new connection. Both were curious to see what it entailed.
It was a jumble of images and emotions that Harry somehow understood perfectly. This is impossible. Incredible. Terrifying. Fascinating.
"Welcome to my world," he muttered, gesturing at the cluttered room around them. "Though I have to admit, even by my standards, this is a bit extreme."
"A bit?"
"Alright, not just a bit," he conceded, chuckling despite the situation. "Still, we need to figure things out. Given the house hasn't thrown us out or alerted the residents about intruders…"
"Its magic recognizes us," Nym finished for him, earning a nod.
"And the tapestry didn't update with our names either," Harry continued.
"Thank Merlin for small mercies. It would've been a pain in the ass to explain how we exist."
Harry nodded absently.
"Harry," she began, making him turn to her. "Is there a way for us to go back to our time?"
Harry's lips pursed and with a sigh, he shook his head.
"Time travel is a delicate concept. We could only travel a few hours back with time turners. And we didn't use a time turner. We came here because of an accident. Also, I don't believe traveling to the future is possible. At least no way has been discovered to make it happen."
The meaning dawned on her and she sighed. A part of her knew that they wouldn't be able to return, but it was still a disappointment to hear it laid out explicitly.
Meanwhile, Harry forced himself to think like an Unspeakable rather than a confused teenager that he now found himself as. "The interaction between the temporal resonance and the Tempus Anima Sphere must have created some sort of cascade effect. The soul bond... that's probably from the sphere itself. It's designed to interact with magical cores, and when it shattered..."
"It linked us together instead of just de-aging us," Nym finished, her mind working in tandem with his through their connection. "Right to the age when our magic fully matures."
"And threw us back in time," he nodded. "It was not completed, after all. And not supposed to be used."
Nym let out a sigh as she leaned against him, and Harry's arms came to wrap around her shoulders, pulling her close.
"So, to sum it up, we are both eighteen now, and we're both stuck here in this timeline, with no way to go back."
"Correct," Harry replied.
"If the Ministry somehow gets to know about us…" she trailed off, and Harry did not need her to finish that statement.
The Ministry, and that meant his department, had a strict policy against time jumpers. Even though large-scale time jumps had never happened before, it had been understood that should they find any, they were to be taken in custody for… educational purposes and neutralized thereafter.
"Well, good thing that none of us is planning to tattle," Harry replied. "No one knows who we really are, and it'd be best if we kept this charade up."
"You mean new identities to settle in."
"Among other things," Harry replied thoughtfully. "And there's one other thing…"
"What?"
"I'm not fully sure about it, but there's a chance that we have created an alternate reality," Harry replied, to her surprise. "Normally, time travel happens with time turners, and those are for a few hours at max. Since there is a way back, it is part of the same reality. We traveled decades into the past and that too because of what's essentially an anomaly. That's why I think there's a chance things might not be fully same in this timeline, and this might not be the past at all. Just past in an alternate reality."
"What does that mean for us then?"
"We're stuck here. That's definite," Harry muttered. "And if it's an alternate reality, then what we do won't have any impact on our original future. We would be able to change things without affecting that future."
"I think I get it," she replied. "It's all a bit complicated, innit?
"Yeah, but we need to act, Nym," Harry intoned softly. "The reality of our situation is in front of us. The sooner we accept that, the better off we are. If, and that's a big if, the situation somehow changes and we are able to go back to our time, then it's a relief. But even if not, we should be prepared to keep going."
"You mean creating a new life here," she said softly.
"And facing the challenges up ahead," he replied, gazing at the Black family tree. "At least it's a relief that this house's magic recognized us and didn't treat us like intruders, or we would've been toast."
Nym chuckled a bit nervously, knowing how dark and unforgiving the Black family wards were.
"It's also a good thing that we are who we are," she said, smirking at him. "Forging our new identities, getting everything done through proper channels, and everything else regarding administrative matters… leave that to me."
"Make sure you get us foreign citizenships first though," Harry replied. "Make it so we both are from another country and have immigrated here. Having a dual citizenship will come in handy."
"Got it. A small country should do. Anything else?"
"Yeah," Harry said, palming his inner wrist where a certain tattoo lay. "I don't think it'd be wise to go by our original names. Times are different, and we'll need every advantage we can get, starting with our family names."
"You might have brought me back into the family, but I don't like being associated with them more than necessary, Harry," Nym replied, looking cross.
"We can have you be a member of an offshoot family line that came from a squib," Harry suggested. "You have the blood, so proving it would be child's play, and the Black name is a powerful one."
Nym still looked unconvinced but she nodded reluctantly.
"What about you?"
Harry stared at the floor for a long moment, his fingers tracing the tattoo delicately. Finally, he looked up and said, "I can't go by Potter. I won't be able to claim the lordship, not that it belongs to me in this timeline."
Nym stared at him for a few moments and it did not take much longer for realization to dawn on her. Her eyes widened.
"You're serious?"
"I am," he replied calmly. "It's the best choice. I have the blood, and there is no one else to claim the line."
Nym stayed silent for a while, and Harry could feel her hesitation and nervousness through the bond they shared. He stepped close, holding her by the arms and made her look at him.
"We've got to do this, Nym. Like it or not, power is important for us."
Finally, Nym nodded.
"Alright, then. Time to get things in order, I guess."
Harry hummed, his eyes fixated on the date and time hovering in front of them. A conflicted look grew on his face as he took her hand in his.
"And if really can't go back, we're going to be involved in more shit than we'd like to," he remarked. "In only a few years, Grindelwald would rise to prominence and the world would be embroiled in the greatest war in history."
The thought sobered Nym up rather quickly.
TBC.
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