Once again Harry found himself sitting back and running his hands over his face. Only this time he was sitting at a cramped little desk in the archives of The Daily Herald.
Harry had found the offices of The Daily Herald, thankfully it hadn't been any trouble, and they were in the same location that the offices to the Daily Prophet had been on his world. When he asked if he could look at old issues of the paper, the receptionist looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face. Her confusion had gone when Harry, thinking quickly, explained that it was for a summer homework project involving recent events.
He'd been lead to a large room that reminded him of a library, complete with fussy older lady who took her time to lecture him about the care that had to be taken with the papers, but that they had a copy almost every issue of the newspaper since it had been in production. She informed him that there were only two daily editions that were missing. One from 1923, and another from 1945, and from her tone she made it sound like quite the scandal that they were missing.
Harry refrained from asking her about them, he was interested in much more recent events. When it became clear that he wasn't going to indulge her, the woman had huffed at him and told him to be careful touching anything.
It took him several hours, but he had gone through almost 13 years of papers from that night Voldemort attacked in 1981, to the present day, 1994. He quickly realized that he didn't need to go through every single day's paper, but that if he looked at the paper every two weeks, events tended to linger and get reported repeatedly even if there weren't any new insight or changes. Harry was sure he wasn't able to get everything, but he got an overview and had a lot of the information he needed.
This world was different. That much was clear. He'd even gotten the wannabe librarian to give him a quill and a blank parchment so that he could make notes. Harry had surprised even himself with how much he wanted to learn about this world. "Even if I could figure out how to, it's not like there's anything to go back to in that world." Harry thought to himself.
First and largest in his mind; the Lily and James Potter of this world hadn't died. Apparently they had several children, but he had never been born on this world. Instead it seems like they had several daughters. They were reported on just enough that Harry knew that much. Obviously their daughter Iris had become the Girl-Who-Lived.
Harry noted that his family seemed not to be fixtures in any of the papers for almost a decade after the events of that fateful Halloween night. At least they weren't in the social section. Occasionally there were quotes from James Potter in an Auror capacity. Harry wondered whether it was to shield their children from the inevitable fame, or if they were in hiding for their safety, fearing reprisals from the Death Eater's that were still free.
However he did also note that reporting on the family, Iris especially, picked up when she entered Hogwarts. He also noted an announcement that same year, that Lily Potter had taken the Muggle Studies position in Hogwarts.
Next, and almost as significant in his mind. Sirius Black had never gone to prison. In fact he was currently a Senior Auror, and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Reading that made Harry incredibly conscious of the weight of the two rings that were invisible on his finger. He had inherited the Black ring on his world when his Sirius had died.
It was the ring signifying that he was Head of the Black family back on his world. It was right there with the weight of the Potter ring. After Voldemort had for all intents and purposes destroyed society there, it never meant anything. The rings wouldn't come off until he died or passed on the headship to blood kin. Of course, all his kin were dead. So Harry figured the rings would just fade away when he passed.
Harry made sure to read anything about Sirius or the Potters that he came across. Harry noted several articles over the past year and a half with articles about Sirius mentioning the possibility that the famously confirmed bachelor, may be settling down, as he was seen at several functions with the same woman. Helena Greengrass, widow of the late Lord Gerald Greengrass.
The idea of Sirius free and healthy thrilled Harry more than he could imagine. In some ways it thrilled him even more than finding out that James and Lily Potter were alive. His emotions were roiling and confused and he was a having a hard time sorting through them.
Yes he was happy that the people who could have been his parents were alive in this world. At the same time…they were also abstract to him in some ways.
He hadn't even known what they looked like until the end of his first year of Hogwarts when Hagrid had gifted him an album of pictures. He had never had anything else to picture them growing up. So it wasn't like he missed their presence, since he'd never had it. He was keenly aware of their lack of presence though.
His only experiences hearing either of their voices were fleeting at best. The effect dementors used to have on him were hearing his mother's screams protecting him. The only other time he'd heard their voices was when his wand connected with Voldemort's. Images, fragments really, came from Voldemort's wand. He knew his parents had loved him, and had died for him. (Like pretty much every other person he had ever known) but the idea of them was still abstract.