Chapter Text
Life makes promises. Growing up with the Dursleys was not easy, but it kept expectations low. But then everything changed when one innocent morning, a few hundred owls delivered a very important letter. Suddenly life had offered him too many promises of a future unknown. As he lived his life and grew, life offered new promises. It started with friends. Then an opportunity to be a skilled athlete. The promise of a long and happy future with a beautiful girl. The promise of finishing school and getting his dream job. The most tantalizing of all promises was the promise of becoming a hero. A hero he was. Everyone recognized him for it. He would still have people come over to him, telling him that he is their role model. They want to be like him. However; being someone else's hero was the worst job one could have when they no longer felt like they could do a single good thing for anyone.
Looking back, it was hard to tell when everything started to go wrong. Watching his Godfather die, watching his friends die in a war, being unable to help or even thank the people who placed their life on the line for him, being sent to die. Maybe someone else would have handled it all better but here he was.
Harry sat in his private office, throwing and shuffling around different papers. Once he clearer up one spot, a mess would form in another place. He knew that ultimately he was avoiding the paper lying on top of the largest stack. Divorce papers. He could not put in words why it seemed so difficult to sign it. It was all he needed to do. Write his name, the date, and a signature. Nothing more. This was a mutual decision. They agreed that this was for the best. They had a plan of who lives with whom and when they travel around. He did not hate Ginny. She did not hate Harry. But neither loved each other anymore. Ginny deserved better. Harry wanted to be alone.
There had been too many nights when he would wake up in the middle of the night, in cold sweat. It could be Cedric, Lupin, Serius, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape. So many more. Having Ginny there when he woke up only made everything worse. The world looked grey and there was nothing he could do about it anymore. Fighting was exhausting so it was much easier to drown himself in work and drown himself in alcohol when he would get home. There was purpose and silence.
Harry left his office, locking it behind him. He got more private about it with time, not letting anyone see the mess or the blanket and pillow always on his couch. New interns walked quietly around him. Some old colleagues would give him a nod that Harry did his best to return. In the tiny little kitchen in the back, Harry emptied out his cup of old tea before rinsing the cup and putting in a new tea bag into it. He got the stove burning with an Incendio. He took his time doing everything from adding four sugar cubes, finding just the right shape spoon, and waiting for the water to boil. He made the resolution that he would finally sign it as soon as he sets his tea on his desk.
Gossip around the office was not as discrete as people believed it to be. It was around the desks of the field Aurors. The common work area of the interns. The kitchen when Harry is not in it. People would talk. 'Did you hear that Harry Potter was getting a divorce?' 'Did you hear that all of his kids will still live with his ex-wife?' 'I am certain that he did not leave last night.' They were right but that did not change that he did not want to hear it all.
Heading back to his office, he unlocked it and slipped back inside with mug in hand. As soon as he closed his door, he jumped, spilling half of the cup's contents on the floor and his leg. A woman he had never seen before was standing in the middle of the room. He knew he had wards from people apparating into his office. But here she stood.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?" he demanded.
"I am here on official business representing the Ministry of Time."
Harry examined the woman in front of him. She had short shoulder-length hair in a perfect bob. She wore a black blouse with a loose ribbon and a green knee-length skirt. Her heels were impractically high and polished so well that Harry could see his reflection. The most unsetting thing about her was her wide smile framed by bright red lipstick and unblinking eyes.
"The Ministry of Time? Never heard of it?"
"I understand, Mr. Potter. Very few people know about our existence. Not even the Minister. Everyone who is told everything about it is either going to work there themselves or going to forget they ever learned about it." Her voice held some pride, clearly proud of her status. Harry felt a little bit of adrenaline from seeing an unknown woman standing in his office with the promise of secrets.
"The Ministry of Time has audited you for a meeting. We very rarely invite people to join us for supper but you are a fine exception. Your life has touched an impressive amount of other people's lives. Would you care to come with me?" She offered a hand politely and threw floo powder into Harry's private chimney.
"Now?" he asked her.
She did not respond. She just stood there with an extended hand holding the invisible invitation. He did not think it was wise to follow an unknown woman to an unknown location. But that little burst of a stranger appearing in his office and asking to whisk him to a promise of a new adventure. Harry felt like an addict that never recovered, finally getting a fix. That is why he took her hand and left everything he could possibly want to avoid.
The next thing he knew was that he was in a long corridor that seemed to go on forever as he did not seem to be able to see an end anywhere. The corridor was covered in black polished tiles that were so clean that they looked like mirrors. On both sides of the walls were doors. Black wooden glossy doors with golden doorknobs.
"Where are we?" he asked her.
"The present," she said as if it should explain everything.
"The present?" he asked.
"Yes. We are in the present of this timeline. The doors are decisions. The decisions of your future," she said pointing forward, "are all yours to open as you live on. But those over there," she pointed behind him, "are the doors you already opened. They are currently locked. I am here to offer you a key for those doors." A golden key appeared in her palm. It was encrusted with green emeralds and precious stones. "But I promised supper first. Don't worry, this is not the kind of situation where everything will be described in convoluted puzzles and riddles.
The woman opened the door on their right which was the only one that did not have a keyhole. She led inside and Harry followed suit only to find himself... in Hagrid's cabin.
"Why are we here?" he asked her. Just being there, he felt so much lighter. Everything felt a little bit smaller than he remembered. But it smelled the same, it looked the same, it felt the same.
"I don't know. This was where you wanted to have supper. I shall put on the kettle. I did deprive you of your tea." She said as she started the light the fire. The sight of a woman in high heels making a fire in Hagrid's little cabin making a fire was not something he thought he would ever see but here he was.
Harry felt compelled to sit in the same spot he always sat as a kid, ages ago in a different lifetime. The lady sat down on Hagrid's armchair. Her back did not touch the back and her legs were delicately crossed. With a snap, she made a kettle appear on the stove with a lemon cake with poppy seeds and a bunch of small sandwiches on the table.
"Now, I do not think it is fair to leave you guessing anymore." She filled them both a cup of tea into two of Hagrid's mugs. They looked strange in her hands.
"To be simply frank with you, Mr. Potter. A lot of people died in your life. A lot of people who should have remained alive. There are countless timelines and sometimes the natural order of things simply does not work. This one did not work. We had no choice but to let it go on for this long but to be frank again, Mr. Potter, we feared that you would not have listened to us until you have hit rock bottom."
Harry was about to disagree or protest but he knew she was right. He was indeed at his lowest point. That did not change the fact that it was unsetting that she said it. She handed Harry the mug. In its reflection, he saw himself. Not as he was then. Harry was eleven years old. Harry watched with a heavy heart as he watched himself making his way through King's Cross in the tea. This was not any magic he knew off as he had not given any memories. He watched Molly Weasley explain how to get onto Platform 9¾. Sitting in the carriage until Ron asks him if he could join him. Hermione asking if they have seen Neville's toad. Harry could not help the tears that formed in his eyes.
"We live in tragic times, Mr. Potter. I would hate to tell you that starting then," she pointed to the mug as Harry was about to ask how to get approach Molly Weasley, "everything went wrong. You should have gone in by yourself." Her words left a bitter taste in Harry's mouth.
"What in the world are you going on about?" He felt a little angered. Granted he had not talked to Hermione or Ron for a few weeks and ignored all letters and phone calls. But they were everything. They were also all he had left.
"You are wrong."
"I do not downplay their role in your life at the present moment. They are so important that they would have found you anyway. Just a little bit later. You would have become friends in the third year. You would have reached the same level of closeness to Ron as you did by the fifth year and little would be different from there. Friends are still friends even if you did not give your heart to them on the first day." Harry could not understand what he was being told. He did not want to accept it. It was nonsense.
"Why in the world would this be better?" Harry asked.
The woman produced a folder out of thin air and handed it to Harry. He took it suspiciously. The contents of it made his blood turn cold. The file contained death certificates. Remus Lupin. Cedric Diggory. Sirius Black. Nymphadora Tonks. Severus Snape. Albus Dumbledore. Fred Weasley. The file contained their pictures and information about how they died.
"All of these people needed to live. They would have lived. Some of them might not have played the same role that they played in your life that they did but they still would have eventually reached you. You are fated to meet no matter what happens. But this is the wrong timeline. However, since this is the time that passed, we have no right to change your past without your consent. We do our best to be civil this way. Now, Mr. Potter. I am here to offer you a choice." She took out the golden key, "You can return to your time where I left you in your office. I promise it gets better. You will go through with your divorce regardless. You will sleep at work for a few days. Until Ron and Hermione come banging on your door. They will make you use your vacation days that you avoided using. They will make you come with them to their home in the country. You will spend days remembering the good old times. You will talk about the future. You will cry and tell each other how much you love one another. You will drink so much that Hermione will swear off drinking for a year afterward. You will make it out of it."
Everything she said seemed so possible. So real so true. He could almost hear Hermione's disapproving voice at the door, beating her knuckles against the door to his office. He could hear Ron next to her asking Harry to open the door.
"Yet it won't bring back any of those people. Life would eventually find a way. It will need adjustment from our end in the future. Killing some people, motivating others to have children to achieve goals that would have been reached by others who died already. Such is the nature of our business. However, I can give you this." She twirled the key in her fingers.
"Despite how unique we think people are. How unique that we think that we are, we are not. If you took a different path, you would have been a different person. You would have had different values that would guide your decision making. In your case, you would have done better. There were people who could have been your friends. You would have steered them away from their mistakes with your friendship. You were always a leader and a friend, some people could have used that in their lives." She took the key and tapped it to the rim of the mug.
The image changed. As Harry approached Platform 3¾, a woman caught her leg in the gap between the train and platform, sending everything in her arms flying. She twisted in pain and cried stopping everyone around her. Young Harry lingered to help her gather all her things. It was enough time for all the Weasleys to have left. Harry had not met Ron and he did not ask if he could sit with him. He passed his cabin because he saw that Harry was already sitting with Pansy Parkinson. She was telling him something while showing him some necklace she had and sharing the cookies she had. Eventually, Draco passed by. He almost passed by completely but Pansy stuck her head out and called him to join them. The scene changed. They were all older. Fifth-year or so. But all three of them looked different from how he remembered them being in the fifth year. Harry's hair was shorter. He approached Draco with Pansy at his side. The Draco he knew never rested his head on the grass. He hated anything touching his hair. That is when Harry noticed a green tie around his own neck. Younger Harry kicked Draco playfully. He just looked up and laugh. An innocent expression he had never seen on his face.
And suddenly he was just looking at a plain mug of earl grey. Harry felt so lost. There were so many thoughts in his head that he could not gather them together. The lady smiled softly.
"I know it is difficult. But now, time in the world stopped. And you have a mug of tea. The tea holds the whole other life. You can pose any question you want, out loud or in your head. Once you drink the tea, it will give you the answers to that question about that life. After you either finish your tea and see your whole life or decide you had enough tea sooner, you can choose to return to your current reality or take this key and open the door to the past for a new future. We have all the time in the world. You have more tea than you might think. In the end, you will never remember any of this. If you return to your world or join the new one, you will never know that your life was a choice that you made. Let that thought comfort you. You get the luxury of freedom of choice to the greatest extent any human could possibly have. The tea will help with the final decision."
Harry took a sip.