Author's note: Generally, I will have these at the end of chapters so you can skip them more easily and not have to scroll through them to continue reading. However, once, for the entire first book, I want to say that Harry Potter belongs to JKR and Warner Bros. and whomever else has rights – not me. In addition, I spent so much time in the worlds of two other fanfiction authors that I need to give them major billing as well. They permanently changed my mind canon. One is CatsAreCool's story A Marauder's Plan, and the other is the Perfectly Normal series by Brilliant Lady u/6872861/BrilliantLady Those stories are amazing, and you should read them first, if you haven't. Otherwise, I am indebted to the body of stories I have read and to fanon tropes, from which I have drawn as suits me.

I am posting this after having seen a few very similar scenes to what I have written, and regarding those, great minds just think alike. However, there are moments I have included that have come up in other stories, but I don't know which stories they were. If you see something you recognize and give me the source, then assuming I have read it, I will happily give credit. I will give anonymous credit (someone wrote this) where I realize it.

Currently, I have 472,216 words of this story (I intend it to be in multiple 'books') but at some point I stopped dividing them into chapters and there are other things that need cleaning up. I don't have a specific schedule to do that, but I am posting the first seven chapters (sort of the introduction and start). I WILL publish the rest of at least 'Book One' over the near future. I know from experience that being left hanging is no fun. The story is nowhere near finished, and I can't swear I ever will finish, because I write in fits and starts. That is why I didn't post this before. However, at this point I am on Book Three, so I figured if it were me reading, I'd be willing to invest my time, and if you aren't willing, that is your call.

Once Again, With Feeling

Book One

Chapter One

Harry Potter heard footsteps approaching and ducked into an empty office. He stood out of sight of the door until the woman, a junior Auror who must have been hired since he left the department, passed into another corridor.

She wouldn't have objected to his being here. No one objected to his presence anywhere these days. But she would likely discuss her sighting of 'The Vanquisher of Voldemort' with others, and he didn't want his presence in the Department of Mysteries tonight to be discussed.

Technically, Harry had no authority to be where he was. Since he handed in his badge as Head Auror following the arrest and conviction of those who massacred his wife and children along with dozens of other people picking up their children at Platform 9 ¾ Harry was no longer employed by the Ministry. He had plenty of money, having received an extravagant award along with his Order of Merlin, First Class when he was only 17. That, on top of the vault from his parents he had received when he was 11 and the house and a bit more gold he had inherited from his godfather was more than enough to see a single man through his days in relative luxury, even without the bequests people still insisted on leaving him when they died.

When Harry turned in his badge and left the Ministry, Harry had seen no real purpose in continuing the job that hadn't even been able to keep his own family safe. He also wanted to get away from the constant looks of well-meaning concern and awkward conversations with his colleagues - and away from the speculative looks from single witches and wizards, which were worse. Harry had no need to work for more money, after all. It wasn't as if he had children to leave it to, he mused bitterly.

So, after striking up an unlikely friendship with the late retired Head Unspeakable, Harry had distracted himself by researching the Veil in the Department of Mysteries which his Godfather, Sirius Black, had fallen through when Harry was only fifteen.

Harry had had some interesting discussions about the Veil with Bertie Croaker following Croaker's retirement from his position as Head Unspeakable and before his recent death. Croaker had been an easy person for Harry to be around in his early mourning. He had become, in a strange way, Harry's closest confidant - even if Ron and Hermione Weasley would always and forever hold the title of best friends. Since his family's murder, it had become somewhat awkward to spend time with Ron, Hermione and their happy family. Hermione and Ron had been taking their children on a visit to their grandparents in Australia the year Platform 9 ¾ had been attacked, and had apparated directly from Hogsmeade to the international portkey office, missing the massacre.

As Harry reengaged with the world after his period of acute mourning, Harry fell into the habit of meeting up with Croaker in a pub for drinks or dinner. Croaker could be counted on to be obsessed with arcane minutiae having nothing to do with war or violence, which was exactly what Harry needed.

And it was in one of the earliest of these meetings that Harry and Croaker began discussing the Veil and the mysterious voices one could hear coming from the Veil in a muted rustle. Harry had argued with his friends whether the voices were real. Hermione didn't hear any. Luna did. Croaker made no bones about the fact that there were indeed voices and that the Department of Mysteries had long believed going through the Veil did not in fact kill the person who went through. The question, he said, was where exactly did these people go?

It turned out that there were Runes on the frame of the Veil which were ancient, obscure and confusing - three things Croaker found especially fascinating. His best guess was that the Veil led to multiple alternate dimensions - or possibly to alternate times.

For the first time since the loss of his family, Harry found something to divert himself - trying to discover where his Godfather might have gone when he fell through the Veil. However minute the chance he could ever bring Sirius back, his Godfather was the only other family Harry could remember, and researching this mystery was better than anything else Harry had come up with to fill his hours.

The wistful dream of locating Sirius on top of the surprising find that Harry took to runes and arithmancy as a duck to water was enough to make him stick with these studies. Croaker was his mentor as Harry studied, being clearly delighted to find a student and confidant in his retirement. Unlike Harry, Croaker was not surprised at Harry's grasp of wards and runes, saying it had long been a strength of the Potter family, something Harry hadn't known when it had been time to choose electives in third year.

Harry was certain his own education, darting from point of interest to point of interest, and incorporating only that portion of arithmancy that 'mattered' to his issue was quite different from the way the subjects were taught at Hogwarts. However, he ended up with an intuitive and innovative mastery of runes and wards that greatly surprised Hermione. Harry toyed with the idea of going into curse breaking or ward creation part time if he decided to take on another job, but for the present, he was focused on his single, personal project.

Tonight, he had come to the Ministry at Ron's request. Ron said he wanted Harry's input on some artifacts that had been recovered in a recent raid. In truth, Harry knew Ron primarily wanted to pull Harry out of his shell and perhaps entice him back to the Auror Department, or at least the DMLE.

His visit with Ron had been surprisingly pleasant and relaxing. With Hermione visiting her parents and with the kids off at Hogwarts Ron had time and the inclination to shoot the breeze over firewhiskey in his office. It had been quite a while since Harry had argued Quidditch and whatever else came to mind with a schoolmate and Harry found he had missed it.

He and Ron had perhaps drunk more firewhiskey than was their usual habit, and they never did get to the late dinner they had intended. Ultimately, Ron began reminiscing about Hogwarts and lost friends - not a topic on which Harry wished to dwell - so Harry took his leave, glad that he had stopped by.

As he was leaving, Harry noted how late it had become, and how empty the Ministry was. After the firewhiskey he had drunk it seemed perfectly reasonable to take a look at the Veil frame he had been studying in person. After all, Harry had never actually reviewed the runes themselves, just the transcription of the runes Croaker had given him.

Now, Harry moved with somewhat inebriated purpose down the corridor deep into the Department of Mysteries towards the dais where the Veil hung. After a year of playing with theory and arguing probabilities with the late head of the Department, Harry was finally going to examine the Veil closely.

Harry crossed the gray flagstone floor, his footsteps echoing, and climbed the dais steps, focused on the polished mahogany frame of the Veil. Sure enough, the array included the rune for time combined with a rune which appeared to be possibly an archaic form of the rune for alternate, or other. It was these runes that were at the center of the debate as to whether the Veil led to an alternate dimension or to a different time. The thought that Sirius might have gone to a different world from which he could be pulled was a tantalizing one. "Accio Sirius Black!" Harry tried semi-facetiously, carelessly casting the spell movements with his wand. Without intending to, Harry had waved his wand right to the Veil itself.

"—Wha...!" Without warning, Harry found himself glued to his wand and dragged through the Veil.