Pendulum by HeartFailure

Chapter 1

It was always the same shit.

It wasn't that life was bad. He was Head of the Auror department now, he did pretty well on the job, and he worked hard to maintain order in Wizarding Britain. When the war was over, he thought that everything would be perfect and easy. What a naïve little shit he was. As a matter of fact, life was easier and harder at the same time. He had his dream job, but sometimes he struggled to get out of bed and start his day. Being an adult was tiring, wasn't it? Having responsibilities regarding everyone's safety since he was eleven was also tiring. Maybe he needed to take some time off, it'd been a while since his last holiday. Maybe Hermione was right and he was just depressed.

Harry scratched his head while reading the report from Winston and Muller. He should have listened to Ron when he told him to live off his parents' money and just spend entire days lounging in the sun with a cocktail.

But Harry wasn't like that. No, he preferred to read for the hundredth time this report which didn't seem like much if you didn't know where to look. And when you did, you could see the problems coming your way and the big headache alongside it.

It just seemed so harmless. Yesterday, a street vendor was inspected because he didn't have a permit to sell these objects in Knockturn alley. It was a real problem sometimes to detect which one of them was transgressing the law as there were so many in the streets around Diagon Alley. Some would assume it was a pointless activity for Aurors to go and carry out checks on them but there were no little or better crimes. Harry knew that some of the younger recruits, such as himself back in the days, thought that being an Auror was merely chasing after Dark lords but thank Merlin, there were none at the moment. So street vendors it was.

It was nothing alarming at the beginning, his Aurors asked him to leave the space and be gone or else. Routine work. Except that the man started to act strangely and talked about his mission and how he needed to be here at this very date and they couldn't remove him because he had to accomplish something big. Something that would "change the course of time".

At first, Winston and Muller tried to calm the odd man but the more they insisted that everything was under control, the more agitated he became. Apparently, he went on and on about his mission and begged for them to let him stay right there.

Until he stopped suddenly and asked them to arrest him.

Quite odd, yes. It was not that distressing, he didn't start to throw Unforgivables on passing patrons. But something felt off with this whole story and Harry was way past hours in his office at the Department of Law and Enforcement.

And the most surprising thing was that the man was only selling pendulums.

It'd been ages since he last saw a pendulum. Maybe it was when Trellawney was swinging it in front of his face in her tower at Hogwarts, shouting about his impedimenting death.

Well at least she had one thing right.

Why pendulums? They didn't sell well in Knockturn, where people tended to prefer flashy dark items like the hand of glory. A pendulum wasn't a dark artifact per se, they were quite common years ago or so, to strengthen rituals, or served as a focus for divination. However, with time they became obsolete and slowly, fewer people used them except to show off. Like Trellawney. He knew all that partly because of the quick research he had done since his team of Aurors gave him this report and he had this feeling that there was something behind this story.

Not that he was in any luck with solving this hunch.

Harry contemplated the mix of shapes and colours spread out in front of him. Some were pure garbage, he couldn't even sense a thread of magic around them. If he were to guess, he'd say they were from the muggle side of London. They were also the flashier ones, with lots of fake pearls and gems, some were painted in gold and he could see places where the metal showed.