Chapter Text
1999->1975
Harry Potter
It happened very fast, as these things tended to do.
Harry might have felt better about the whole affair if he felt he had done something besides standing in a forest to attract the beast's attention. That might make the strangeness of being transported twenty-four years into the past more palatable if he had done something horribly brave, stupid, or foolish like he was likely to do at any given moment. Then, it would be his fault, and not just the universe fucking with him again, as it was also likely to do at any given moment.
Luna had just finished announcing that the Fategon was there when the ground beneath their feet began to buck wildly. Hermione fell into him as Harry tried to keep the silver-haired magizoologist from toppling backward into his suitcase with a sharp exhale of shock. As Harry reflexively maneuvered them all down to the ground in a heap beside the suitcase Scamander deftly locked it. He pressed the case up against his chest as Newt looked around them with his wand held aloft.
Rolf beside them curled protectively around Luna whose blue eyes were wide with wonder but also a heavy dose of caution. She had lived through enough horror to be wary. Ron and George had followed Harry’s lead and huddled to the ground as it shook and sputtered like a dog shaking out its fur to dispel them like fleas. The tree limbs over them shuddered and before Harry could do it both Hermione and George simultaneously cast shield charms over their heads stopping the heavy limbs from crushing them as the world seemed intent on doing.
“Where is it?” Harry shouted over the crashing of tree limbs and the groaning of the earth beneath their feet.
Newt leaned closer to Harry pointing his wand up over his shoulder. All of them whirled around as one to look into the face of the creature which was literally unfurling itself from the ground. It looked like a dragon or maybe an older less sharp-looking giant serpent-like the basilisk had been but made of out earth.
Harry realized with horror that they weren’t just near the creature; they were on top of it as it lifted itself from it’s resting place. They were located on the hump of its spine if Harry could tell from its large head decorated with trees and animals, twisting tree roots bristling out of its earthy skin like coarse hair. It twisted its long sinuous neck to look back at them as the creature hefted itself from the earth, maybe taking the whole forest with it. Its eyes were large blue pools, pupil-less but clearly able to see them as tiny as they must seem to this titan of a creature. It looked and looked.
Harry would say that it was him but maybe they all felt that trapped in its gaze. The ground around them shuddered and moved as the Fategon stared and stared deep into their souls. The hair on the back of Harry’s neck stood at attention, and he nearly stopped breathing when the voice whispered into his mind. A voice that was far wiser, far older, and far kinder than any voice which had haunted Harry’s mind before.
"Fate recognizes what you have done sacrificial lamb, you who have walked to your own likely destruction to save others. You have done a great deal already, following the tangled threads of fate laid out for you. Do you take up this mantle again child? Would you fight again, for what is right, for what is not easy? Or do you seek rest, do you need only peace? Is this the foundation of society you wish to work with?"
Harry was a no savior. He was a man, a tired one at that. No matter what anyone said or thought or wrote about him he had only ever done the best he could with what he had. He had only ever fought for what was right, not what was easy. Was that a mantle he discarded now that he had done so much for so many ungrateful witches and wizards and muggles?
No, Harry had never been one to choose what was easy, only what was right and difficult and damning. He owed it to his friends, to his family, to his parents who had died so painfully young for their baby boy. Still, that didn’t mean he knew exactly what he was signing up for here.
He had already defeated Voldemort, and while he was involved with the restoration of order in the wizarding world, as well as training to be an official dark wizard seeker, his talents didn’t seem to be as needed as they had been during the war. Sure, there were plenty of death eaters to track, defeat, and imprison but the really hard work of changing society so a Dark Lord like Voldemort never happened again would need people like Hermione to set it on track. Something she was diligently preparing for. Harry at times felt sorry for wizarding society after Hermione got done hitting them over the head with common sense and decency.
Scamander had spoken about the Fategon giving them something to better society, but what more could Harry possibly do now when so many lives had already been lost? Whatever his ruminations had revealed to the creature Harry didn’t know. He just watched as the Fategon nodded its gigantic head and then watched as it reached back toward them. Harry froze not wanting to hurt the creature but uncertain he should just let it eat them.
Rather than swoop down to swallow them the Fategon opened its great maw of a mouth. Ribbons of incandescent light shot from the creature's mouth and moved through their shield charms to encircle them all. It moved in a circle and Harry looked down with wide eyes at the warm golden light that protectively circled around them.
Booming words that echoed through each of their heads was the last thing they experienced in 1999 before the world went dark and seven wizards slipped through time creating a branching timeline for which they would never return.
“Good luck!” The Fategon had roared as the wizards melted into sparkling light before again it lowered itself to the ground and closed its ancient eyes once more.
///
They all came too as one, gasping for air on their backs surrounded by an undisturbed forest and a misty blue sky peeking shyly through the tree limbs over them. Harry was the first to sit up his wand in his hand as he scanned the forest looking for the creature or for any other threats. However, nothing appeared different, just the quality of light which looked more like pre-dawn than the afternoon that it had been.
“Bloody hell,” Ron groaned as the rest of the sat up from their prone position, “Not sure I signed up for that one Luna.”
“Eloquent as always Ronniekins,” George snarked beside him as he rubbed his tender head squinting around as Ron punched his shoulder with a grunt of annoyance.
“Is everyone well?” Scamander asked clutching his suitcase all the tighter to him.
He was helped into a standing position by Harry who reached out for him and Hermione after standing on his own. One by one each of the seven wizards sounded their health, slightly dazed with a wicked headache, but otherwise well enough.
“How much time has passed?” Hermione wondered squinting up at the sky before she performed the tempus spell only to freeze as she studied the conjured image.
“What is it, Hermione?” Harry asked, feeling tense as Hermione dismissed her spell and then performed tempus again. Hermione didn’t answer as she rubbed her eyes and then stared harder at the image before she looked at Harry with wide eyes.
“It’s wrong.”
“What is Miss Granger?” Scamander asked politely leaning forward to view the image of both a clock and the planets current alignment much like the watch that Harry had been gifted from the Weasleys.
“Oh,” Scamander grunted before he performed the spell himself comparing the mirror images, “well, that is quite the conundrum.”
“What is it, grandfather?” Rolf asked pulling Luna forward by his arm around her shoulders as they all gathered around the two tempus spells.
Harry for himself noticed that the spell looked strange as well, something about the planets seemed different, though he wasn’t knowledgeable enough about the change to note what it would mean. Scamander gulped, fussing with his collar before he looked at Hermione as though to confirm that she had reached the same conclusion.
“We’re in the wrong time,” Hermione supplied sounding strained, “I saw something like this distortion in our third year when…well with the time turner, but it’s far more pronounced this time. Not mere hours, but…”
“Years,” a cool voice suggested sending Harry, Ron, and Hermione to scatter equal distance from each other.
Their wands were up and spells already sent toward the two figures who had somehow snuck upon them in their distraction over the strange tempus spells. Harry’s disarming charm got the older squat witch’s wand, but Hermione and Ron’s spells were absorbed by a powerful shield charm by the second witch who had reacted nearly as fast.
Harry caught the first woman’s wand as he glared at the two women, the wandless witch looking distinctly annoyed but the other was smiling placidly at them. Behind them the others were reacting to the perceived threat as well, George and Luna a smidge faster than the Scamanders.
The wandless witch looked as though she wanted to be anywhere else at that moment, her steel gray hair gathered in a severe bun that reminded Harry a bit of Professor McGonagall. She wore lilac robes and several beaded necklaces with charms that also reminded Harry distinctly of Trelawney. The other witch might have been albino if not for her dark eyes rimmed by colorless eyelashes. Her hair was loose hanging over her shoulder in a rippling sheet of pure white, her robes were a periwinkle blue in an even more old-fashioned cut than her companion's robes. Her hands were long and pale wrapped around the wand made of white wood that matched her white hair finer even than Luna’s.
“Who are you?” Harry demanded, eyeing the witch’s strange pale white wand held in a neutral position at her side after she had put up the shield charm.
“More polite to ask before throwing spells, lad,” the wandless witch growled taking a step back to allow her companion to guard her when she was defenseless.
“Force of habit,” George said jovially. “Desperate times and all that.”
The younger witch smiled at George before her eyes landed on Harry again.
“You’ll find it hasn’t quite gotten that bad yet here,” the albino witch said pleasantly.
“In Austria?” Ron blurted out, only for the witch to shake her head with a faint twitching smile on her aristocratic face.
“In 1975.”
“19…75,” Harry said as though testing the words, when he glanced at Hermione to see if she was buying this tripe, she looked calculating. She met Harry and Ron’s eyes before giving a decisive nod throwing her weight behind the statement.
“Out of proper alignment you are, it’s bloody typical the way the planets are this year,” the older witch snarled, “now can I have my wand back lad? I don’t fancy myself wandless in this bleeding forest stuck with her for a champion.”
The albino witch turned to look at her companion with a sardonic expression her eyebrows lifting in amusement. The wandless witch just ignored her and continued glaring at Harry who still held her wand. Harry swept his eyes to the side to gauge his companions' reactions, at both Hermione and Ron’s subtle nods Harry levitated the wand over to the woman trusting his friends to cover his back. Luckily the witch simple wrenched the wand from the air before she pocketed it in her robes with an angry harrumph.
The other witch glanced at Harry with a twitch of a smile as though to share her amusement about her companion with him. He couldn’t help the subtle lift of his own lips before he managed to discipline them again. Something about her almost reminded Harry of a combination of Luna and Albus Dumbledore in his eccentric moments that could transition at the drop of a hat to cool competence.
“Now that everyone has their wands,” the witch said bowing her head deferentially to her surly companion, “I think we may introduce ourselves before we continue discussions of time and dimensional travel.”
“Dimensional,” Hermione whispered under her breath and Harry could practically hear her brain ignite in excitement at the idea of dimensional travel.
“This is the esteemed Hogwarts Professor of Divination Cella Palmer circa 1975,” the witch said with a slight bow to the elder witch who continued to scowl at them as her companion smiled “and I am her protégé Alleria.”
“Protégé,” Palmer snorted, “you’re caught up in this nonsense twice as much as I, don’t be inflating my ego for nothing. I haven’t the patience nor the time left in this world to endure false modesty.”
Alleria smiled wanly. She looked to Harry somehow sad, before that was washed away by her calm visage.
“You’re a seer?” Hermione asked, not able to hide the veiled judgment in her voice.
She had never gotten over their third year and her inability to learn Divination from a textbook. The two seers clearly heard the derision. Palmer lifted an angry eyebrow at Hermione, while Alleria broke out into a broad grin.
“Sybill warn you off for life, huh?” Alleria asked with a smile.
“Sybill?” Palmer asked with a derisive snort. “That wee air-puff fourth-year Ravenclaw who keeps divining her classmates' deaths?”
“She’s made true prophecies for them,” Alleria explained as the professor visibly rolled her eyes.
“Not on purpose I would suppose. Well, a broken clock is right twice a day,” Palmer rolled her eyes, “I wouldn’t allow that air-puff form your knowledge of the second sight lass. It’s a rare gift, but we’re not to be ignored.”
Hermione frowned, clearly still unable to think well of the subject.
“If this is 1975 then how do you know about Trelawney’s prophecy?” Harry asked with clear suspicion.
He was still not sure he really believed they had somehow time-traveled to the past via large mythical creature. Though if he were, to be honest with himself, it would hardly be the weirdest thing to happen to him.
“She’s a seer Harry,” George snorted, “it’s kind of in the job description to see the future and know annoyingly vague details.”
Harry did his best not to feel abashed over that simple statement of fact.
“Very astute Mr. Weasley,” Alleria grinned, neither confirming nor denying that was how she got her information.
“Do you know what brought us here,” Newt Scamander spoke up for the first time and Harry felt him stop at his elbow still holding his wand out in a guarded but non-threatening position. His head tilted down toward his chest as though to protect his neck as he looked slightly above the witches' shoulders.
“I would think you would know more than I, Mr. Scamander, about the Fategon,” Alleria smiled with a lifted eyebrow as she teased the Magizoologist.
“So, it was the Fategon which transported us?” Newt confirmed.
He nodded to himself slowly though he appeared to be processing some deep emotion based on the cast of his hazel eyes.
“Well it certainly facilitated the shift,” Alleria confirmed.
“What did it do, Mr. Scamander?” Hermione asked.
Looking to the expert for an explanation, though it clearly rankled her than she had no more idea than the rest of them what had happened.
“I—I never guessed that it would be something so….so drastic,” Newt admitted in a quiet but intentional voice as he looked down to his suitcase he still held in one hand, “when Albus and I discussed the Fategon after I discovered the tales years ago, we believed that it would offer some kind of insight, perhaps a unique power or a gift.”
“That would better society,” Luna piped up.
She continued to lean into Rolf’s side though he appeared to be even more lost and out of sorts than the rest of them. It generally came with the territory of being in the vicinity of Harry Potter. It wasn’t something you could actually prepare for; famous Great-grandfather or not.
“Yes.”
They stood there in the silence for a moment before Alleria nodded gravely.
“And so, you have been given a gift,” she said in nearly a whisper, “to be the only wizards and witches given the chance to change time, and not just to change it but to save it.”
“That is dangerous,” Hermione contradicted looking at her friends to impress upon them the dangers of the moment as she had done all throughout their school years, “we could wipe ourselves out of existence before we’re born, Mr. Scamander excepting! We could stop progress from happening, or any number of things we cannot account for! If we must stay, then we must stay out of events until our times overlap for our lives.”
“No, you won’t lass,” Palmer shook her head, “ever since this one began badgering about this bloody inconvenience, I’ve done every test known to Divination. Whatever has brought you here expects you to stay for good. If fate has determined you remain here, then you shall remain separate from the you which is, or is not, born in this timeline.”
“That’s were dimensional travel intercedes,” Alleria explained, using her wand to draw a single gold line to demonstrate for them. Seven stick figures began walking down the line at a steady pace.
“The timeline you came from continues separately from this one. In fact, right now, there is a version of you that is waking up completely unchanged in your proper places where you will continue to live your ordinary lives. However, you lot have branched off not only going back in time but creating a branch dimension and timeline at the exact moment where you will make the most impact to better society.”
The group watched as Alleria drew a slightly shorter golden line above the first and then connected the two to the end of the shorter. The seven stick figures duplicated, seven continuing to walk down the first gold line while the others climbed across the connecting line. As soon as the seven figures stood on the short line it turned silver before it began to grow longer as the seven figures moved forward again, the two timelines and dimensions forever tied by that single point of contact but otherwise autonomous of each other.
“We can’t go back?” Rolf asked in a quiet voice, the pain echoed in all seven of those present as they thought on those that they had left behind.
“No,” Palmer answered, but this time far kinder than before.
Alleria watched them with sympathy quiet as they let this knowledge sink in. Hermione let out a little whimper and Ron immediately moved to wrap her in his arms; though he too looked as though he had been struck across the face. Harry slung an arm around George who was closest now and looked as though he didn’t know how to react. Harry was reeling himself and trying not to think about Ginny at all. Rolf had pulled Luna closer to his grandfather who had put a comforting hand on his great-grandson’s golden hair in a smoothing motion. Newt seemed to be taking the news the best out of the seven of them.
“But…our families will still have us, right?” George croaked, his arm going around Harry’s shoulders as though he suddenly needed the support. “They are actually us and not some kind of echo or fraud?”
“They are you as you currently are,” Alleria reassured them, “although they will grow and change as you will here and become different but no less purely you at your core.”
“Good…” George muttered, both relieved and shellshocked, “mum couldn’t handle it if all of us—"
They stood in shock again, thinking on their duplicates who even then would be waking to a world unchanged. Living the lives that they themselves would never again know. It was heartbreaking...but also something else--
“Remember this is a gift,” Alleria reiterated dissolving her example with a flick of her wand, “you have the chance to change what has already been! Think of those you could save, the change you could bring with the knowledge and experience you have! This world desperately needs you, a world your youngers selves will someday be born into. Make the world you would wish yourself to have been brought into.”
“What do you think ‘Mione?” Ron asked pulling back to wipe away her tears gently.
They all watched as Hermione weighed their options before finally, she met Harry’s eyes.
“We start again?” Hermione asked. “Stop him before he ever threatens a baby in his cradle? Save our families from all that suffering?”
“I’m in,” Harry said.
“Me too,” Ron said immediately backing him up.
George was next to agree then Luna, Newt, and finally Rolf.
“Then, I say we do it,” Hermione said before she turned her eyes on the two women, “but now that leaves the question of who you two are exactly and why you are here.”
“I’m a professor, we told you that,” Palmer snarked before she rolled her eyes, “don’t expect a straight answer out of this one though, she’s not one for answering things about herself. She’s been working as my apprentice for about a year, though Merlin knows why since she knows far more about Divination than I ever have.”
Alleria’s mouth twitched and without saying a word she moved the sleeve of her robes to reveal a tattoo on her right forearm. It was not a tattoo they would expect to be there, not a Dark Mark, no Harry watched in shock as the deathly hallows sigil was revealed glowing an ethereal silver color against her paper-white skin. Once the three who it meant something to had seen it Alleria dropped her sleeve again and then placed her hand formally over her heart.
“It will be my pleasure to guide you in your venture, Master,” Death smiled at Harry, darkness yawning behind her dark eyes.
A fuzzy memory came to him of a woman with her hand over his heart as he lay in a heap on a cold forest floor where he had intended to die. In reality, it had been Narcissa Malfoy who had checked for signs of life and then coldly lied to the Dark Lord, but in Harry’s mind for a moment the two women blended together seamlessly.
“Dead,” the woman who was both Narcissa and the physical incarnation of Death had spoken in one voice, setting up the events that would lead directly to Voldemort’s downfall. Creating the chance for Harry’s duel that would unite all the Hallows in a single person’s possession. One resurrection stone lost on a forest floor withstanding.
“Don’t…don't call me that please,” Harry said faintly as the woman who was both the Seer Alleria and the current vessel for Death smiled at him in a way that was thoroughly discomforting.
“Very well, Harry Potter, very well.”