Chapter Text
-As you may surmise from the title, Harry is born a twin. Harry James and Will Evan Potter, brothers. That’s the first point of divergence, not the last.
-Two more things changed the night Voldemort came for them. The first, James Potter got hit by a spell that was significantly less instantly fatal then the Killing Curse, but still not very fun. And the second, on the way up the stairs, Lily grabbed the invisibility cloak, which they’d kept for another few months because of a bad feeling she had. She was planning on wrapping the boys in it, to protect them.
-Voldemort came into the nursery while she was still holding the cloak. She begged for her sons' lives, offered herself in their place. She had every intention of dying if that meant her sons could live. And in magic, intent is what matters. The killing curse hit her when she leapt between her sons and Voldemort, but the cloak, the cloak that could hide you from even death, settled over her. And death didn’t come for her. But her sacrifice was accepted.
-Harry was left with a scar on his forehead, but Will was unmarked. When word got out, Will was quickly hailed as a savior, the boy who not only lived, but walked away without a scratch. James and Lily are less than amused.
-Just because Voldemort was dead didn’t mean all was well, however. The news of the Longbottom’s fate horrified the Potter parents, and they knew their family wasn’t safe.
-It was decided that they had to go back into hiding, but this time, even deeper. James and Lily would split up, James going one way, Lily another. Lily would take Will with her and claim to be a widow, James would pretend to be a bachelor. Harry, who was neither a combatant with potential information about Voldemort nor the vaunted boy savior, would be left with Lily’s sister, to grow up safe and secure and have a normal life. Famous last words.
-James ended up in New York, Lily and Will went to France. It was hard. They couldn’t access their money, in case it was tracked, and since they were using false names, they couldn’t use their real credentials either. Lily in particular had a very hard time being able to provide for the son she took with her, and Will, being a very bright little boy, noticed fairly young how hard his mother worked for so little in return. Certain seeds were planted then, when he was very young.
-After nearly ten years of that, James and Lily are tired. They miss their sons. They miss each other. They’re sick and tired of being basically banished from their home country. With truly awful timing, they decide that it’s been long enough. They’re coming home, just in time for their boys to start Hogwarts together.
-Lily is the one who goes to get Harry from Petunia’s house. The only reason Lily didn’t do something she would’ve ended up regretting is because Harry was watching.
-For the first time in nearly a decade, their whole family is together, and the twins celebrate their eleventh birthday together before heading off to Hogwarts.
-On the subject of the twins, neither of them really has any idea what to do with one another. What exactly are you supposed to do with your long lost twin brother, especially when you’ve both had different but extremely poor childhoods up to this point?
-They end up splitting up as soon as they get on the train. Harry meets Ron, and the two of them hit it off. In the meantime, Will runs into Hermione while she’s helping Neville look for his toad, and the two of them get along famously.
-When the sorting rolls around, Harry is sorted into Gryffindor. Will is sorted into Slytherin.
-For a while the rather uncomfortable status quo is maintained, but then Ron and Harry run directly into Will as all three of them rush to save Hermione from the troll.
-In a chain of unlikely events, possibly involving Fluffy, Mrs. Norris, and an enormous hat, they pick up one last friend for a proper five man band. I can’t be bothered to look through the books to find a canon character that suits my needs, so let's invent one. Let’s say her name is Amy. She’s a Slytherin, she loves gothic horror and dragons, and she is absolutely vicious and merciless when riled. And there we go! When all five of them are together, they look kind of christmassy.
-While I’m thinking about it, Dumbledore. Evil Dumbledore’s are all well and good, but honestly? A bit overdone. So you can totally imagine him as an evil chessmaster if you like, but me? I’m going to say that he’s a very old, very tired man, who is trying to do what’s best for everyone. And if he falls short sometimes? Well, he is only human.
-In no particular order:
- Harry and Will end up tag teaming the Remembrall thing. Harry gets on the quidditch team. Will gets detention. It is generally agreed that this is unfair. The two of them write their parents about it, complaining about Snape. James’s response was mostly incoherent rage. Lily had to take the pen away from him. She explained that James and Snape had been rivals at school, and since James and his friends had senses of humor comparable to the Weasley twins in a pique and Snape and his friends weren’t afraid to stoop to dark hexes, things very quickly got ugly. She had used to be friends with Snape but broke it off because he called her a particularly vulgar racist slur. So now Snape hates James for having the audacity to grow up to become a better person, Lily for having the audacity to have a mind and a life of her own, and the boys for having the audacity to look like them. The responses may or may not have been a howler. Lily may or may not have known it was a howler until after she sent it.
- Amy is absolutely euphoric over Norbert(a). The others are kind of freaked out by their normally calm and acerbic friend squealing like a fangirl.
- Ron teaches everyone to play chess. Will is the only one who is any good, but Hermione is determined.
-Will bonds with Hermione truly frightening work ethics, with Ron over chess, with Amy over being sneaky, and with Harry over rough childhoods and also flying. Amy bonds with Hermione over books, Ron over trying to get out the work ethic duo to chill, and Harry over transfiguration. (James promised to teach his sons the animagus transformation when they were old enough, and Harry is excited) All of them bond over hating Snape and Malfoy with a passion. Will and Amy complain, because at least the others can get away from him, they have to share a dorm!
-As mentioned, Will and Amy might be Slytherins, but the general consensus among our little christmas color quintet is still that Snape is definitely evil and probably the one after the sorcerer’s stone.
-It turns out that Amy is a very gifted singer. She sings Fluffy to sleep, then threatens to skin anyone who breathes a single word of it. The others are suitably intimidated.
-When they get through to the potion room, Hermione gives the one to go forward to Will, but Harry swipes it once he’s drunk half of it and plunges into the flames. Will uses every french dirty word he picked up living in the slums to call his brother an idiot, but follows him in. Quirrell can’t touch either of them.
-Will is the one who gets the stone out of the mirror, but Harry is the one who defeats Quirrell, tackling the possessed teacher off his brother, and holding on until he can’t anymore.
-Will camps out in the hospital wing nearly forty eight hours after Harry is brought in. Madam Pomfrey ends up showing him exactly what she’s doing to fix him up to get Will to relax and go get some sleep himself.
-I neither know nor do I care who won the house cup. Maybe Hufflepuff crept up from behind for a surprise win.
-The school year ends happily, and Will and Harry head home for their first full summer with the whole family.
End Book One