Chapter Text
At this point in his life, experiencing pain was more annoying than anything else: a nuisance really. He had experienced so much and come so far over the years pain was something he’d learned to brush off if he really wanted to. As was, at least, the case normally. Today, as luck would have it, was turning out to be anything but normal. Though as Harry Potter — once hailed boy-who-lived and savior of the wizarding world — pain and the abnormal were all but synonymous with living at this point.
The pain initially started as a small ache in his chest when he woke up that morning. The sensation was mundane enough he passed it off as trivial: heartburn or acid reflux, he thought casually. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and the body experienced such on occasion. Without much thought, he’d sifted through his potion’s cabinet, took the properly labeled potion, and moved on with his day.
As was his intention with taking the potion, that was to be the end of it.
It was certainly not the end of it.
By mid-morning, the pain had escalated to a sharp stabbing. It was still a discomfort more than an ailment, and by this point, he had already taken a potion for it. So, he decided to simply ride it out. It was no reason for concern he reasoned. He told himself perhaps the potion had simply not taken effect yet (a muggle concept of medicine he hadn’t worn off yet—everyone knew potions took effect almost instantaneously into the body). He would get over it in no time.
No time turned into lunchtime, however, and he had moved from thinking the pain would ride its course, so perhaps he should investigate different potions to treat it. The pain had become an agonized throbbing and had him gasping for breath. His entire body had begun to shake, unable to filter out the sensation and overrode his basic motor functions. It was still something he could technically manage but this pain had certainly entered the lower end of his tolerance threshold.
Thusly, it was at lunch he decided to cast several diagnostic charms on himself. To his dismay it wasn’t any common sickness or food poisoning, nor was it related to any kind of digestion. Likewise, it wasn’t a heart issue, (or, in fact, related to any of his organs). His heart rate was normal, and his blood pressure was normal. It wasn’t magical as he didn’t have any trace of a curse on him and there was no trace of poisoning by potion either. There seemed to be nothing wrong with his body at all. All his diagnostics came back normal, and he was fit as a fiddle. Which was nothing on the growing searing sensation that resounded from the center of his chest and ebbed across every nerve ending of his body.
It was strange, to say the least.
The pain increased exponentially by the hour. When he had broken into a sweat and dropped his wand mid-spell he began to grow concerned. It was approximately four in the afternoon when he’d managed to drag himself into bed having flooed a healer. He assured himself (hoped) a healer would find what he had not.
When the healer reported back a negative on every diagnostic charm, Harry couldn’t say he was surprised (he was quite confident in his casting thankyouverymuch), he was; however, growing alarmed with the incredible rate at which his pain tolerance was beginning to fail him. His pain scale was always one to cruciatus (courtesy of Voldemort) and the pain had long moved from annoying to riding the cruciatus line too close for Harry’s liking.
When his body began to struggle to function too lost in the quivering tremors, vision painted white from the agony a whole team of healers descended on him.
Amidst the fury of working healers, he wondered if this is what death felt like.
By half past six when he took his last stuttering breath, he realized it was.
There was a disjointed feeling which could only describe as otherworldly. Amidst the dulling static of pain, he idly wondered what had killed him. He’d outlived all his loved ones. After the war with Voldemort, he’d never really made any more lifelong connections, he’d just managed casual coworkers and friends of convenience. He wondered if anyone would care if he died or if they would simply cast retellings of his life story and make him out to be an inhuman character in a book—or if he would get a book about “The Life and Lies of Harry Potter” which discredited everything about him and for what he stood.
He closed his eyes to the pain which was increasing again and waited a moment before opening them. He expected to open his eyes again to see platform 9 ¾, as was the trend for him, however, he never got the expected…even in death.
When he opened his eyes again it was in a rasping gasp and a skipping heartbeat. A feeling only second to the buzzing pain shooting through every nerve ending. Bolts of magic sprayed out his fingertips like sparking lightning and it was only through the throng of a heavy headache he realized the pain was beginning to recede, though still present.
He knew at once he wasn’t dead.
“This isn’t platform 9 ¾,” he snipped dreadfully attempting to see past the white haze of light and a blur he could only recognize as a lack of glasses. “Where are my glasses?”
While he was exhausted by the ordeal, he found himself struggling to understand what was going on when words slowly began to filter into his consciousness. They were not the same voices of the healers who had worked on him. Perhaps it was a different shift?
“Dumbledore, he’s stirring!”
“Harry, Harry! Can you hear me?”
“Quick, someone grab the boy’s glasses.”
“Harry are you okay?”
“Shush, someone get him water!”
“Harry! Harry, it’s me!”
—or perhaps not.
Everyone was speaking at once and because of it, he could only process one-third of the words hurled at him. The voices were keen and obsequious wanting to serve his ailments in every syllable; despairing and desperate all at once. He could recognize the voices if he tried, they had a quality of distant familiarity. Though he couldn’t put a single name on any one of them.
“Sirius, my boy, you must remember, that while this may look, act, and sound like our Harry, he is most decidedly not.”
“Here you are, dear,” a woman said with a watery tone close to tears and pushing something into his shaking hands. It didn’t take much for him to realize what they were and quickly slipped the glasses over his face.
“Whether he is or isn’t Harry, I think I’ll decide for myself, Dumbledore.”
“That may not be wise, my boy.”
Lights, thundering sounds, and then suddenly hands were on him poking and prodding. He could feel the cool chill of a diagnostic charm.
“His breathing is erratic. But everything else seems normal.”
“As though anything about a dead person breathing is normal,” scoffed a man’s voice, terse and greasy.
“Shut up, Snivellus!”
“Here, dear, have some water.”
Someone pushed a glass into his hand. Everything was too much, too sudden. His eyes were having difficulty adjusting to the lighting, but everyone was talking so much and so loudly he just wanted to scream: so, he did.
“AAAAAArg! Enough!” He screamed his voice raw and gravelly before throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. Clearly forgetting there was a glass in it. The sound of splattering and shattering erupted all at once and then a tense silence followed. The prodding hands flittered away, and he was left alone to the sound of his haggard breathing. Until he wasn’t.
“It’s good to see Mr. Potter’s tantrums haven’t been deterred by his near-death experience,” a man sneered.
He didn’t let anyone talk to him like that anymore. Harry’s eyes snapped to blurry attention on the man. Instinctively he reached for his wand to curse him, but he was alarmed when it wasn’t there. In one fluid motion, he was on his feet casting a wandless accio. There was a familiar slap of wood into his hand and a curse ready on his lips, but it lost to an uncomfortable lisp as his eyes widened and his mouth sputtered once he recognized the man as one not-so-dead Severus Snape.
“I must be dead,” he rattled confusedly as his vision, while still blurry from the light, suddenly took stock of the situation. He frantically looked around the room from face to face like he’d gone mad. Snape. Lupin. Sirius. Misses Weasley. Tonks. Moody. Kingsley. Was that Mundungus Fletcher? “This isn’t how I imagined death to be this time.” The pain still pumped heavily in his veins. Why was there still pain? There wasn’t any pain last time. Using his hands to feel up his chest he realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Looking down he found a mess of cuts on his chest mapping out a series of runes. The air smelled dank like wet earth and dark magic. A smell he remembered well from his years as an Auror. He looked between the bodies of his dead friends and found they were in a ritual room he didn’t recognize. When he died wasn’t he supposed to be in a place he knew like the time with Dumbledore and platform 9 ¾?
“Now Harry,” the sage old Albus Dumbledore began, but Harry didn’t feel like listening yet. Not until his rushing thoughts sorted themselves out. Of course, Dumbledore would be the one in every death to explain away everything, but he was not ready for the large can of flobberworms just yet.
“Op op op!” he shushed and tutted, “Not yet, I need a second to process before you start talking.” In his mind, he laughed at finally being able to talk back to the dead headmaster after all the hardship and heartache he’d caused, but everyone else seemed completely floored by the disrespect. Even Sirius was stumbling for words. Snape sneered. Dumbledore, on the other hand, seemed as unflappable as always. Let them be confused. He needed to figure out if he was dead or alive.
He started by identifying where he was. There seemed to be a circle in the center of the room a few paces away. It looks like he’d been sleeping on a recently summoned cot. He had the sinking feeling he wasn’t dead, and it was a lot more disturbing than the idea of being dead had been. How could he be here, surrounded by dead people, but still be alive? He stumbled his way around the room looking at the ritual remnants scattered haphazardly about. Everyone gave him a wide breadth as he trudged about still shaking noticeably. He circled the room several times. He could taste blood. He hoped it was his own. Then there was the velvety feeling of dark magic residue silking about the room like an invisible fog.
“There was a dark ritual performed here,” he drew out slowly flickering his gaze to Dumbledore suddenly.
“Do you recognize it?” Dumbledore asked, surprised by the admission, as though he hadn’t expected Harry to be able to figure as much out. He wouldn’t have been able to reason it in the past when Dumbledore was alive, but he certainly could now.
Harry snorted, “Hardly.” Then suddenly curious, he conjured up a full-length mirror in front of himself to get a better look at the runes on his body. Unexpectedly, what the mirror reflected though, was a young body of only 15 or 16 years old and scrawnier than a broomstick. He still had his mop of messy jet-black hair and bright green eyes, but he looked young. He’d forgotten how gangly he looked in his youth, but here it was laid out before him as clear as day. He traced the image in the mirror gently with his trembling fingertips. He was almost naked and covered completely from head to toe in runes. He’d never taken any formal training in runes, but over the years he had dabbled in it to help with his work. The runes clearly had something to do with life, but anything else he couldn’t glean from his limited knowledge. He’d seen some runes about longevity and strength, but he certainly couldn’t put them together to form a better context.
“Are you Harry Potter?” Dumbledore asked suddenly as though he was unable to hold the question in any longer. He stepped closer to him from across the room.
Harry pursed his lips together in annoyance and gave the man a trying glance. “Why do you ask?” He asked suspiciously.
“For a moment you seemed surprised to see yourself. I couldn’t help but wonder if the ritual went awry.”
Harry sighed, already fed up with the way this day was going. If it was even the same day. He wondered if Dumbledore wished he wasn’t Harry Potter based on how he was acting. He debated for a moment saying he wasn’t Harry Potter but quickly decided against it. If this was some life ritual, it means he’d probably just died. He definitely didn’t want to die twice in one day. So instead of risking another death, he shook his head slowly.
“No, Professor Dumbledore, if the purpose of this ritual was to kill Harry Potter and bring him here, it certainly worked.”
There was a collective gasp of shock in the background. Perhaps he was wrong about the ritual? Though, perhaps not, Dumbledore didn’t seem deterred by the accusation.
“Perhaps you died of natural causes?” Dumbledore suggested, and Harry scoffed again.
“People don’t just magically die with no detectable symptoms. I had an entire team of healers working on me, and every test they did said I was the perfect likeness of good health.”
Dumbledore gravely nodded his head, but there was again an outburst from the spectators behind him. “It was a possibility, unfortunately. This ritual has not been well documented—”
“—no doubt because of its dark nature—” Harry teased.
“Indeed, dark times call for desperate measures. But it is true we didn’t know exactly how or what form Harry Potter would take.”
Harry paused, taking it in for a moment. “So, I’m still a little bit confused. I can understand the basics of a ritual performed and have lived through death once before. But what I don’t understand is how a bunch of dead people can perform the ritual.”
This admission properly stalled Dumbledore in his thoughts, “I beg your pardon?”
“Yeah, so I get the whole resurrection thing, but the thing that trips me up is being resurrected by the entire Order of the Phoenix that is dead…”
This acknowledgment stirred the room into an uproar.
“The ritual worked, but it brought back an insane Harry.”
“What in Merlin’s name does he mean dead?”
“Harry, are you all right?”
Harry wanted to cut them off again, but Dumbledore was already raising his hand to silence them.
“Fascinating. Dead you say? This is indeed incredible, the ritual brought us a Harry Potter from another world where we have already died,” Dumbledore hummed thoughtfully, his eyes glinting behind his half-moon spectacles.
“Another world?” Harry repeated skeptically. He’d certainly seen a lot in his lifetime, but this was a bit much even for him. But, as he was here now, he could go along with the events and hope he would soon wake up in his own bed with a fever that was generating these ridiculous nightmares.
“Albus, does that mean he is from the future?” someone asked.
“Not necessarily, he could simply be from a different reality where we’ve already died…or he could be from a future that is different from ours. It no doubt will be different from ours because he comes from a world where Harry Potter lived, and we did not. Whereas our world is one where Harry Potter dies, and we do not.”
While this explanation clarified some matters, it also brought up some concerning questions. “I died?” he asked suspiciously, gauging everybody’s reactions as he did so. The room seemed to stiffen, and a wave of grief filtered across everyone’s faces.
“Indeed, Harry Potter died several days ago at the Triwizard Tournament. Young Harry reported the resurrection of Lord Voldemort when he returned with the Goblet of Fire from an unknown destination. However, the Death Eaters sequestered Harry Potter shortly after he returned. Unfortunately, we didn’t find him in time. We found the poor boy, hours later dead on the edge of the forbidden forest. This Harry was not you, of course. No bit of magic can properly bring the dead back to life. Instead, we used a ritual to, hopefully, call forth the soul of another Harry Potter — from a different time and place — into our world. Though it sounds as though, you also died in another way from the world that you came from.”
Harry, still trembling from pain and exertion numbly crossed his arms. “So…you’re telling me that another Harry Potter died, and I died to take his place?” he asked with a growing rage. He may not have had a great life with few friends and fewer pleasures, but it was still his life. Now Dumbledore was standing there telling him that he and his companions had decided to drag him to this other world to be a replacement for their dead Harry Potter? For what purpose? To what end? He had lived a life full of strife and rife with difficulties. But he had earned the dullness and monotony of living his life how he wanted to. He had already lived through the manipulations of Albus Dumbledore once. He had already lost everyone he loved. Wasn’t once enough?
“Indeed, I am.”
“Why?”
Dumbledore expected this question and went on without pause, “Why, because we are in desperate need of your aid, my boy. Times are—”
“Times are always hard,” he bit out. “Somewhere someone is always desperately in need. I’m old and tired, Dumbledore. I’m not stupid or naive. I don’t need you to give me the runaround. I need you to be honest with me for once.”
Dumbledore was silent for a moment, as he leveled Harry with an evaluating stare. He searched his bright green eyes for something and seemed to find it. “You are wise beyond our young Harry’s years. Perhaps I was being unfair to you by treating you as I did him. I am sorry. There is a proph—”
“Dumbledore, no!” Moody cried from the back of the room and pushed himself through the crowd. “You can’t tell him, yet. We have no information on him. We can’t trust him yet. We must have constant vig—”
“Can’t tell me what? That there is a prophecy about the-boy-who-lived defeating the dark lord?” Harry guessed, enjoying the way the surprise affected Moody’s face and made him flounder for words. “If it’s the same prophecy as the one from my world, it only says that he will have the power to vanquish the dark lord, and since your Harry Potter already died the part about one cannot live while the other survives is already fulfilled. The prophecy is fulfilled here, and there is one already fulfilled where I come from. That means it’s a moot point.”
Dumbledore, however, seemed to disagree. “The powers of divination are not so easily evaded, my boy. As you are still Harry Potter, the prophecy should still hold.”
Harry didn’t agree. He was quite sure the ‘power the dark lord knows not’ was not love (like his Dumbledore had conveyed) but was the Horcrux that had been inside of him, and if this Harry Potter was dead, it should have also killed the soul shard inhabiting his body. He certainly didn’t want to tell them this, however. This was not his Dumbledore, nor was this his Sirius or Lupin or Mrs. Weasley. His friends were dead. These people were just facsimilia of those that he had lost. It appeared like they may share some of the same memories that his versions held, but if he was only 15 or 16 years old and had just died here…some of them were missing years of memories that he still had, and they didn’t. He was also not their Harry. If Harry Potter had died here, during the Triwizard Tournament, then they too held memories about him that he didn’t share, and it would be unfair to the Harry Potter that passed to claim his mantle as though they were the same person. Couldn’t they see that? Harry looked around at the tired and hopeful faces around him. They were too desperate to care at this point. That was certainly a feeling that Harry could understand, having been through so much loss himself. But it didn’t excuse the wrongness of this ritual. To kidnap another person from another world just to shove on unreal expectations… To plaster his face over the face of another… It wasn’t fair to him nor was it fair to the original soul that had inhabited this body.
“That’s not a good enough reason,” Harry said more calmly than he felt. “I want to go back.” This admission caused another uproar to his audience.
“Harry, you can’t mean that—”
“I knew any version of Potter would be a selfish fool.”
“Dear, give it some time, you haven’t even seen your friends yet.”
“Alas,” Dumbledore began, looking older than he had a moment ago. “The ritual is only to call another spirit from another world, not send them back. To go back, they would have to perform the same ritual in your world, and then there would be no guarantee that it would be you that would go back to your body. It very well could be another version of you that gets transported. Once this ritual is completed, it severs the connection to your spirit and the world that you come from. For all intents and purposes, once the ritual is completed you become the Harry Potter of this world.”
Harry did not like that answer nor did he like the dread that came with it that told him he was trapped here in another world, in a body that was only in its mid-teens. But too, he didn’t completely believe Dumbledore’s words. If the man had put this much effort into bringing Harry Potter back to life, he had certainly not asked nicely. More likely, if there was a way to get back, he had already researched it and would do anything in his power so that Harry would not find out. That way, he could fulfill whatever task Dumbledore had for him. Which involved getting rid of Voldemort in this world. There was a nasty little worry that he was stuck here, and if he was, he would have to find a way to live here. That thought was quickly overshadowed by exhaustion as he continued to shiver and tremble.
“Either way, I have no intention to help you, Professor,” he said with as much strength that he could muster. “You killed me, kidnapped me, trapped me in the body of a 14-year-old, and expect me to, what? Do your bidding? I’m sorry to break your happy little plan, but I want no part of it. Following you once led me to lose all my friends and killed me twice — including today. All I ever wanted was a simple, normal life. I certainly don’t want to see everyone I know die a second time. I don’t care if you want me to kill Voldemort. Someone else can do it this time.”
Dumbledore frowned at the admission, “My boy—”
“Don’t ‘my boy’ me, headmaster. I may be in a child’s body, but I am an adult. This has gone on long enough. I’ve just come back from the dead, apparently. My body aches and I’d like to clean myself up. It’s strange to be the only one standing here in my knickers. Now, if you don’t mind getting me something to put on…”
“Very well, my b—Harry, perhaps you need some time to adjust. Molly, if you would help mister Potter get cleaned up…”