Chapter Text
"And there is no excuse,
There is no lie big enough to hide behind
(Our time is now!)
The blinding lights struck the people divided,
What were they waiting for?
(Our time is now!)"
The People Under the Stairs – Ice Nine Kills
“You, unfortunately, lost your life to early,” said Death, looking irritated. “You haven’t been killed by the hands of the other. This will be a good chance for you to acquire all three Deathly Hallows. Maybe on this second-chance you might even get a sibling who's the Chosen One, or perhaps you’ll befriend the Chosen One or maybe you’ll become the Girl-Who-Lived…there’s all sorts of possibilities.”
“Which one will I be?” asked Harry, balking at the thought of becoming a girl. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, but learning how to become a girl sounded awkward.
“That I do not know, I have to leave it up to Chance,” said Death. She held up a pair of die, “Good luck in whatever Chance gives you, Mr Potter, hopefully you won’t waste this second life like you thoughtlessly did in your first one.” She threw the dice and there was a blinding flash of white light and a high-pitched ringing. Pain split into Harry’s skull and –
Harry woke up, suddenly very cold, and staring at the underside of a staircase. His vision was blurry and felt nauseated, like he was going to be sick.
The lightbulb in the cupboard turned on and a little boy with black hair was looking concerned at him.
“You look ill,” said the boy.
No duh, Sherlock, Harry wanted to say but he didn’t want to get sick all over this kid.
The door to the cupboard opened and a little girl with black hair peered in.
“Are you two okay?” whispered the girl.
“Harry isn’t," the boy replied.
“Take him to the bathroom,” ordered the girl, “Before he gets sick all over you and we’ll be the ones cleaning it up.”
The boy helped Harry from his cot and he and the girl helped lug him into the upstairs bathroom. It made Harry wonder how old he was if these two toddler-sized children were strong enough to help carry him to the bathroom. As soon as Harry got to the toilet, what little that was in his stomach came up.
The light turned on.
“What are you three doing up?” demanded a very familiar voice.
Aunt Petunia.
Mother of Merlin, he was back in Privet Drive.
“Harry’s ill,” said the girl.
“Move it,” ordered Aunt Petunia. He turned to look at his aunt. “Are you faking it, boy?”
“N-no, Aunt Petunia,” said Harry. He ended up getting sick in the toilet again. As far as he can remember, he never got ill like this. It must’ve had something to do with Death.
“Are you intentionally doing this to ruin Dudley’s upcoming birthday?” said Aunt Petunia.
“N-no, Aunt Petunia,” said Harry.
“Well, I can’t have you ruining Dudley’s special day in a week,” said Aunt Petunia. “And Mrs Figg wouldn’t want to watch you while you’re like this either.” She was fretting.
Harry wasn’t sure what was going to happen to him.
“You, you’re going to share the girl’s room,” Aunt Petunia said to Harry’s brother.
Harry wished he knew their names. They were obviously his siblings, coming from the way that Aunt Petunia was speaking to them and refusing to his sister’s name.
“Okay, Aunt Petunia,” said Harry’s brother.
Harry started feeling weak and tired. It was a surprise when Aunt Petunia picked him up, Harry realised that he was probably very small and was carried to the cupboard under the stairs.
He stayed in the cupboard for two days, feeling worse and worse.
Harry had some sips of water, which came back up, and Harry was sure that he had the flu.
Why did Death have to put him back in a very young body? He couldn’t figure out how to act like a toddler. Actually, he was four-years-old considering Dudley's birthday in a week, according to Aunt Petunia, but still. He couldn’t use big words anymore; he couldn’t speak like a fifteen-year-old either. Damn it! Why couldn’t he be ten? Why did he have to go through puberty again?
Well, at least he had someone to be with so he wasn’t alone and he didn’t have to make up memories with his siblings, so that was a bonus.
He didn’t get better by the third day and Aunt Petunia had to take him to A&E, which was something that Uncle Vernon was against, but relented in case whatever it was that Harry had, Dudley would get.
Harry wasn’t surprised to find that it was five days before Dudley’s fifth birthday, so his guess was right, he was four-years-old.
It turned out that he was dehydrated and had the flu. No wonder he felt like crap.
He was in the hospital for four days and he was saddened that his siblings didn’t show up. He wasn’t surprised that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn’t let them see him.
“I want to see my brother and sister,” Harry said.
“It’ll scare them,” said Aunt Petunia, “Seeing you like this.”
Harry doubted it, considering the idea of them possibly ending up in Gryffindor together once they get to Hogwarts. Then again, it would probably be scary for them seeing him in a bed, with an IV in his arm to keep him hydrated. He was sure that they weren’t allowed to see him was because it had something to do with appearing normal.
The next day Aunt Petunia gave him a homemade card that came from his siblings. All it said was, ‘Get Well Soon’ and was signed by Cypress and Tristan.
It made Harry cry in happiness. Sure he had received birthday cards from his friends and ‘get well soon’ sweets from when he was in the infirmary but something about getting a ‘get well soon’ card from his blood-related siblings instead of his chosen siblings just made him emotional.
Getting hugs from his siblings after leaving A&E was also very nice and comforting.
Aunt Marge was there for Dudley’s fifth birthday. Mother of Merlin’s mother how Harry loathed that woman.
She seemed to sneer at him and his siblings. Tristan and Cypress seemed like they weren’t sure what to do with Aunt Marge’s behaviour.
If Harry was older, he would glare back at Aunt Marge, but instead he had to act like a child.
He kept silent and chose to read or play with the second-hand toys that their aunt and uncle gave him because he didn’t know how to act like a little kid. Sure he wrestled a little with Tristan, which was more like grappling with each other and moving around. The shelf in the cupboard getting knocked down was his fault, but still…
Celebrating Dudley’s fifth birthday made Harry and his siblings miserable. Harry still felt like crap, even though he overcame his illness a few days prior.
The good thing was that after the trip to A&E, the Dursleys feed them a little bit better after one of the doctors mentioned that Harry was a little underweight.
“It’s time for musical statues,” said Aunt Petunia and Cypress groaned. “What was that?”
“I said I’d love to,” said Cypress quickly and got up.
“You, boy, go play musical statues with your cousin,” Uncle Vernon growled at Harry.
Harry said, “But I’m still—”
Uncle Vernon growled at him and Harry got up to go play musical statues.
It wasn’t much fun because Tristan and Cypress kept losing because Dudley kept smacking Tristan and pinching Cypress to get them to lose.
Harry tried to avoid Dudley, but Aunt Marge whacked him in his shins a few times with her cane. He grimaced and lost the game to Dudley, who squealed over it.
And the next day, Harry had bruises on his shins from getting hit with the cane.
“Happy birthday, Harry and Tristan,” Cypress said to Harry and Tristan on Harry’s fifth birthday.
“Happy birthday, Cypress,” said Tristan back to their sister.
“Happy birthday, Cypress,” Harry parroted.
Triplets? Harry thought. It made sense. He and Tristan were practically the same height and Cypress was at least shorter than them.
He and Tristan both had the same emerald green eyes and black hair. Cypress had black hair and had very pretty blue eyes. He was sure that Cypress got her eyes from their dad’s side of the family, because he was sure as hell that she didn’t get them from Aunt Petunia’s side.
Cypress also had a lightning-shaped scar on the left side of her neck. It started at the top of her neck and zigzagged all the way down, probably to the top of her collarbone.
It had taken a moment for him to get used to the idea that he wasn’t going to be the Boy-Who-Lived anymore. He had a shock when he noticed that he didn’t have a scar on his forehead anymore and kind of missed it.
“How did I get this scar?” Cypress asked Aunt Petunia one day.
In the car crash that killed our parents, Harry thought.
“A very evil woman gave you that scar,” said Aunt Petunia crisply.
“What?” Harry said bewildered at the different answer that Cypress had received.
Tristan’s eyes widened.
“You’re too young to understand,” said Aunt Petunia. “I’ll tell you when you’re older. And don’t ask questions.”
Ah, there it is, Harry thought. It was one of the Dursleys’ golden rules.
Dudley started his bullying. He started jumping out of random places to scare Tristan and decided that breaking Harry’s glasses was funny. Oddly enough he didn’t really target Cypress, but Harry was sure that it had something to do with their teachers telling them that they can’t hit girls. However, that didn’t stop Dudley from pulling Cypress’s pigtails or braids, and pinching her.
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never saw a thing when Dudley did hit Harry on the nose to break his glasses or tripped Tristan on the stairs. Harry couldn’t believe that he had to deal with Dudley’s bullying again. It was like how he had to go through puberty again just to help his sister defeat Voldemort.
Harry couldn’t wait for their Hogwarts letters to arrive.
“Something odd happened,” said Cypress.
“What happened?” asked Harry.
Cypress started explaining, “So this group of girls was pushing me back and forth and I fell, and one of them stepped on my skirt without me knowing and my skirt ripped—”
“You should tell someone,” said Harry.
“Let me finish,” said Cypress. “I hid in one of the toilet stalls because I had this huge hole in my skirt and I wasn’t going to walk down to the office to get a new skirt.”
“So, did you? Your skirt is fine,” said Tristan.
“That’s the thing, somehow it fixed itself,” said Cypress.
“Maybe you thought it ripped,” said Harry.
“No, I heard it rip and I felt the air,” said Cypress. “I was even holding the fabric.”
“Weird,” said Harry.
He was proud of his sister for experiencing accidental magic for the first time, that he thought he would cry. Actually that would be weird.
Tristan had experienced accidental magic twice. Aunt Marge, Merlin, how Harry loathed that woman, brought her favourite dog, Ripper with her. She sneered down at him and his siblings, and handed Harry a suitcase like he was a bell-hop and threw her jacket on Tristan’s head like he was a coat-rack. She ignored Cypress’s presence completely.
It was the second day on Aunt Marge’s stay when Tristan walked by Ripper, who snapped at his ankles, causing Tristan to whimper a little, and somehow the dog’s fur turned yellow.
Aunt Marge yelled at him until her face turned red and Harry snickered at what had happened to Ripper.
Harry found that he actually enjoyed school, despite the lack of friends and the bullying that Dudley kept dealing him and Tristan. He was saddened to find that he didn’t have class with his siblings, but he was sure that it had something to do with grouping. He wasn’t sure if he enjoyed school because he knew the work already or if he had a new trait forced on him when he was reborn into some new universe.
Tristan seemed to enjoy the work and didn’t mind how hard it got for him. Cypress seemed to be like Harry in the sense that she did work because she had too. Cypress was a good student; it was just that she seemed to be bored. He wondered how she would fare with the classes from Hogwarts.
Harry wished time would go faster. He and his siblings celebrated their seventh birthday alone. Cypress turned out to be very crafty and gifted them beaded bracelets with their names on it. Apparently a teacher had given her a bracelet making kit and she kept it hidden in a loose floorboard in her room.
It made sense for Cypress to have the bedroom because she was a girl. Harry tried not to let that bother him, but he was kind of jealous over it. If she was in the cupboard under the stairs with him and Tristan, he was sure that it would be a fire hazard.
When they were eight, Aunt Marge came for Christmas. Harry hated watching Dudley open his many Christmas presents, while he and his siblings got boxes of dog biscuits. Dudley squealed with delight when he got a computerised robot.
The sadness that Cypress expressed made Harry’s blood boil. He loved his siblings damn it, and he couldn’t believe that his aunt and uncle just treated the three of them poorly. A branch on the Christmas tree caught on fire and was quickly doused out with some tea from Aunt Petunia.
The look that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia gave him made his heart sink. He and Tristan were getting to big to share the cupboard and lately, Uncle Vernon was threatening that either he or Tristan were going in the shed.
But it was better with Harry going in the shed than Tristan.
And Harry was the one that went in the shed, but he didn’t care, as long as Tristan was warm.
When they were nine, somehow Tristan got a really bad infection in both of his legs.
Tristan could walk (reasonably) well, hence Uncle Vernon’s reaction of saying that it wasn’t bad and Tristan is fine, and he doesn’t need to go to the hospital. However, standing for a few seconds hurt Tristan a lot. He described the pain as fire running through his legs.
Dudley took the time out of his day to knock Tristan to the ground because he laughed at the pained whimper that Tristan would make.
Tristan was taking antibacterial tablets which weren’t even touching the infection.
Aunt Petunia took him to A&E for help. He had to get an IV for the infection.
He had to stay in the hospital for a few days and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon refused to let Harry and Cypress see him.
Tristan was mostly better; he could walk and run fine, it was just that if he stood still for long periods of time, his legs would start hurting.
Cypress had taken to putting pain-killing tablets in her messenger bag for whenever Tristan's leg pain flared up.
“Just put on this jumper,” ordered Aunt Petunia.
“I’d rather get stabbed repeatedly than wear that ugly thing,” said Tristan.
Harry was stunned at his brother’s statement.
So Aunt Petunia grabbed Harry and tried to force it on him.
“No!” yelled Harry, struggling to get out of his aunt’s grasp. “I don’t want to wear that!”
“Stop struggling you little brat,” snapped Aunt Petunia. She tried to force the jumper over Harry’s head, but it seemed to shrink. She did that a few more times, but the brown jumper shrunk to the size where a hand puppet could wear it.
Aunt Petunia looked at it confused, “It must’ve shrunk in the wash.” She shrugged it off and went away.
“Thank God that we didn’t get in trouble,” said Harry. He had gotten better at not saying ‘Merlin’. It was a thing that he had to unlearn, after getting used to terms like that.
Tristan nodded in agreement.
He got in trouble for running from one half of Dudley’s gang and got found on the school roof. Tristan got punished for leaving school grounds, after he got chased by the other half of Dudley’s gang though he wasn’t sure how he ended up at Mrs Figg’s house. Harry was impressed at how far Tristan accidentally Apparated.
Cypress got in trouble because some windows shattered after she screamed over some bullying that she was getting from some other girls and she got in trouble for breaking the windows, despite being at a distance from the windows.
Harry couldn’t wait ‘til they get control over their magic. He was glad that they were closer to getting their Hogwarts letters. If he played it quickly, he’ll throw the letters in Tristan’s cupboard. The shed became Harry’s room because he took a lot of the blame for the punishments that Cypress and Tristan would’ve received.
He refused to allow his siblings to be blamed for something they didn’t do, so he took the fall for them. He couldn’t explain why he wanted to, but Cypress must’ve been wired the same way, because she took as much of the blame that Harry tried to take. It was like a contest on who would take more of the blame between Cypress and Harry. Harry would’ve found it funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Cypress could talk to snakes, Harry wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He was sure that it was a bad thing, especially with the Chamber when they got to their second-year. However, one of them caused the glass to disappear. Maybe all three of them caused it to disappear, when Dudley knocked Tristan right into Harry, which knocked them to the ground.
Either way, the three of them were in this together now and Harry will find a way to get them out of Privet Drive.
The only thing he can think of is proving Sirius’s innocence, since he’s their godfather. He needed to get the Marauder’s Map from the Weasley twins and point out Pettigrew’s name to Dumbledore and…
He needed a backup plan just in case that one didn’t work, and he needed a backup plan for that backup plan.
Or he could just wing it, like he had been for the past four-to-five years before he died and got reborn into this life. Then again, he died, so maybe he should start planning things out. He already knew what was going to happen, but he should start planning properly.
He took an old notebook and a pencil from his backpack and opened the notebook to make his plans. He had to prove that Quirrell had Voldemort underneath his turban, but he had to make sure that the rest of Hogwarts was safe, he had to get Riddle’s diary away from Ginny, he needed to make sure that Pettigrew gets arrested before he can go back to Voldemort and he had to clear Sirius’s name. He would prefer for Sirius to be cleared during their first year, but it would take a while for that, especially if Sirius had to clean out 12 Grimmauld Place.
Now he just had to wait for the letters to come in. He needed to plan for that.
If he gets the letters where will he go? They can go to Mrs Figg, but there was always the Knight Bus that they can use, except they don't have wands to call for it. No, they had to go to Mrs Figg first.