Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After the Triwizard disaster at the end of his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived and now liar extraordinaire, witness to the dark lord’s rebirth and most insane person alive, was carted off to his aunt and uncle’s house. Miraculous really, how much he was treated like a weapon or a tool. He was the main target of a sort of immortal and totally alive dark lord, the favorite person of the leader of a bunch of rebels and possible vigilantes, the boy who needs to be smothered by his best friend’s very loud mother, the godson to an escaped prisoner with not that many crimes to his name, the sort of nephew to a poor werewolf, the freak accident to his mother’s sister and said sister’s husband, the easily accessible punching bag for his darling whale of a cousin. Need he even go on? The list was extremely long and really, really irritating because it just showed how popular he was. And guess what, even with all that popularity, not one person actually tries to help him! And oh, how he needed the help!

When he was finally taken to the headquarters of the “Order of Phoenix”, (and why wasn’t he taken there in the first place?), it was after he had nearly had his soul sucked out by a dementor who was obviously desperate, after the ministry of magic themselves had sent a letter of expulsion, almost wand snapping, not so much expulsion, a trial and all sorts of other rubbish because the ministry of magic was just that - a ministry, complete with rich people, weak-willed toadies, bribery and corruption.

So, yeah, he was glad that he was with his friends and godfather and sort of uncle and sort of brothers and sister, and oh, who knows how to describe everyone else there? The only problem he had now was that everybody refused to give him any information. There was not a single word from Dumbledore, the ever-useful headmaster and leader of the vigilantes and everyone else assumed he needed smothering, namely one Molly Weasley, or not to be told because he was traumatized by Cedric’s death, most of the order members. Obviously, Sirius and Remus wanted to tell him all about everything and Snape saw him as a carbon copy of his father, who shared the blatant disregard for rules and the need to know and have everything they asked for. But besides all of that, life was fine.

Well, there was still the trial for breaching the Statue of Secrecy, not that he had actually breached it since his cousin and Mrs. Figg already knew about magic and the Underage Magic Laws, which were annoying because honestly, was he supposed to let a dementor, a soul-sucking horrible beast, kiss him? Dementors may really be desperate and need to get laid, but they were not going to kiss him!

Dumbledore decided to appear at the Ministry, where his trial was unfairly moved earlier and without anyone letting him know that, and Dumbledore decided to completely somehow save him. Not that he needed saving per se, he might’ve gotten out fine on his own, but if Dumbledore wanted to help him, who was Harry to stop the greatest wizard of all time since Merlin, and who had been ousted from the International Confederation of Wizards as well as the Wizengamot in the past month alone?

Besides all the bad news though, there was some good news! Guess what, his best friend, Ron, was made prefect and so was his other best friend, Hermione! How wonderful for them and everyone else! Okay, maybe he was a bit bitter, just a teeny-weeny bit though. He needed their help and there the great Albus too many names Dumbledore went and made them prefects. Say bye to your friends, Harry, and say hello to your better, no… your best friend, loneliness. Yes, he was being overdramatic, and sulky and broody and moody, but he was a teenager with a lot of issues. Too many, you could say.

But now, he was at Hogwarts, and how glad he was! There was no new professor who was possessed by everybody’s favorite Dark Lord (hopefully), no new professors who were frauds (actually very possible. The pink ministry toady looked very promising in this field), no professor who was a dark creature (wait, do half-giants and a witch-toad crossbreed count as dark creatures?), no death eater posing as a teacher (again, the pink toad looked too ugly to be normal, but no self-respecting death eater would dress like that), no professors trying to murder him at all times (oops, never mind that, there’s always Snape with his glares and detentions and Dumbledore with his awful security over the most secure building in the world).

Overall, this was turning out to be a wonderful school year, even though he had been back in school for less than 24 hours and had already been called an attention-seeker (no less than 27 times), a liar (more than 50), whispers behind his back (most of the school come to think of it), an insane fool (that was just a few people though) and taunts to his face (just the one, courtesy of our very own Slytherin Prefect, Draco Malfoy!).

And as far as bad years went, that was the worst that could happen, right? Wrong. He had nightmares constantly, and he clearly needed help. If no one was going to help him then he was going to help himself, thank you very much. He wanted his sanity preserved how it was, terrible and very close to insanity, but that’s not the point.

That is why he was sitting in the library in the middle of the bloody night, under his very own invisibility cloak (were students even supposed to have one?) and the Marauder’s Map (It’s definitely illegal to have that!) open on the table. He was researching a way to talk to people who could help him the most. So far, the most promising spell was one where said person or people would be brought to the present time, meaning from a different time, either future or past. It didn’t seem too hard, so of course he decided to try it out.

Moving to an empty room in an abandoned part of Hogwarts, there were surprisingly a lot of those, he set up for the spell. 10 minutes later, he was ready. A ring of simple runes formed a circle and he sat at the center of the circle. The spell was more like a chant and required quite a bit of magical power, so he was hoping that none of his supposed helpers were homicidal, against him or murderers. With his luck, he wasn’t holding too much hope.

He started the spell and immediately felt the energy slowly draining from his body into the runes on the floor. It was at that point that the spell exploded, and the energy dispersed like a shockwave. For a second, Harry wondered if something had gone wrong, until the magical shockwave rushed back, as if the entire spell was reversed, and the magic built up around him. In a bright flash of light, the magic cleared to show seven figures.

Chapter Text

As a magical shockwave rippled through the wizarding world, it unlocked memories of past lives in six people. Then, picking up seven of them, one already had all the memories and had remained for a long, long time, transported them through the powerful wards of Hogwarts. All of this without alerting the Ministry of Magic, Albus Dumbledore, or Tom Riddle, because young Harry Potter deserved some help and these seven did as well, albeit in different ways, and this was the best choice. So, when the magic cleared and they all saw each other, they were understandably confused.

“Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing here?” Harry asked, pointing his wand at the seven random guys suspiciously. He had performed the spell hoping that someone useful would be pulled out of time, you know, like his parents, who were dead, or like Merlin, or even the founders. Not seven random people who were also obviously confused.

“Now, now, Harrykins. Is that any way to greet us?” Two voices piped up in sync. The only people who spoke like that were Fred and George Weasley, who were the only magical, identical twins that Harry knew of.

“Fred and George, what on earth are you doing here? Also, why am I here?” Another voice asked, and Harry turned around to see Bill Weasley standing behind him. Why did the spell bring them to him anyway?

“Maybe Harry here…” Fred said, or maybe it was George who spoke.

“Should explain that to us?” The other twin finished, and most of the other inhabitants of the room turned to Harry expectantly.

To Harry’s horror, he saw not only Lucius Malfoy but also three other dark-haired people who were most likely death eaters. And that was only based on their looks. Surprisingly, all four of them were sitting very politely against the wall. And well, if magic decided he should trust them, he would give them the benefit of the doubt, for now.

“Well, see I need help in this war. So, I performed a spell that will get people who can help me from any time. Also, I’m curious, I don’t know half of you and those I do know are not from some other time or they are on the opposite side as me in the war. I’m also fairly sure that the spell probably didn’t work properly!” Yes, Harry was rambling and yes, he was annoyed.

Bill chuckled, followed by Fred and George snickering. So, he scowled at them.

“The spell gives certain people memories of past lives that would be useful to them and you, Harry. These memories can be from any time since the beginning of this world. It doesn’t bring the people here, just finds the best match in personality and thought processes of the person in the past century.” Bill explained calmly, after reading over the spell.

“As for who we are,” one of the dark-haired males spoke up, “do you want our current names or those of our memories?”

“Both preferably.” Harry said, and all the people exchanged looks. “And what is the problem?”

“You see, we don’t have all our memories yet. So, we don’t actually know our other names, just some important parts, like the fact that I fought in a war, scratch that, multiple wars.” Another dark-haired guy spoke up. This guy looked similar to Sirius. “I’m Regulus Black, by the way. It was 1979, as far as I know, when I died.”

Harry just blinked at him. Did he just say that he had died, in 1979? Oh well, not the time to be checking out the logistics of this extremely weird spell. Maybe he should read even the really tiny messages in the book before trying a spell next time? He had forgotten to do that this time, maybe that was the problem. Meanwhile, the next person introduced himself.

The first dark-haired person spoke up again. “I’m Rabastan Lestrange, from the year 1989. I was dying of starvation and depression in Azkaban, last thing I remember. I feel like it’s the second time I’ve died, and that I deserved it both times.”

Well, would you look at that. Another death eater, from Azkaban no less!

“I’m assuming you already know me. I’m Lucius Malfoy, and I am from the year 1998. I was killed during some important battle that I cannot remember. Same way I died the first time, it seems.” Malfoy’s father did not speak like a politician, nor like the blustering person Harry spoke to a couple of years ago. He seemed more grounded and in tune with everything now.

“Who are you?” Harry asked the last person, another dark-haired guy. This guy had the same silver eyes that Lucius Malfoy and Regulus Black had, which was weird. It was like all of them, even the Weasleys had something in common. In fact, now that he was searching for it, Bill had the same silver eyes as the others. Which was pretty odd, but truthfully, wizards were and always will be odd.

“Von Brandt, Elvis Von Brandt. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Harry Potter. Malfoy, Black, Lestrange, and…” He left the last bit open ended so that the Weasleys could introduce themselves to the others.

“William Weasley. And my brothers, Frederick and George Weasley. Nice to meet you.” Bill introduced; it was a very formal greeting. Harry wouldn’t have introduced anyone like that, and he didn’t even know that Fred’s name was Frederick or that Bill’s was William. One would have thought that his best friend would have introduced his brothers properly!

Based on the conversation that had started up between the seven people, Harry assumed that they were all getting on well. Or as well as possible, considering Fred and George were hissing quite savagely at Lestrange and how Bill and Von Brandt were having a very, very formal speak off. Also, was Malfoy (Merlin, that is going to get confusing really fast) mocking Black? What on earth were they all arguing about anyways? They had all literally just met, and they were already acting like some close friends that Harry had seen around, or better yet, like siblings!

It was definitely time to go to bed. Maybe this terrifying dream would just go away then?

Chapter Text

Terrifying dream or not, it definitely didn’t go away.

Harry woke up in the worst way possible, by someone dumping cold water on his head. Unfortunately, at the time, Harry was slightly preoccupied by the fact that a) he hadn’t had any dreams that night! and b) he did not know how the person who dumped water on him even got into his dorm (as mentioned before at some point, Dumbledore’s security measures for the safest place in Britain were questionable at best.).

So, at that point in time, Harry did nothing but splutter and curse, before finding out that he was late for breakfast and classes. Ron, his wonderful mate, left him behind because he was sleeping so peacefully? To quote Hermione - ‘Honestly, Ronald?’

So, he rushed through getting ready, he ended up looking like a walking-talking disaster (though his hair did look normal), and he had to skip breakfast (the most important meal of the day guys, even his aunt preached that!). To make it all better, he had Potions as his first class, with Professor Snape as his teacher.

“Ready to die yet?” Bill asked, lounging on the common room couch. How did no one notice that he was lounging in the common room? “You have Potions first. Would you like Freddie and Georgie to set off some pranks in your name?”

Yeah, no thanks. He didn’t sign up for this. Next time, honest to Merlin, he’s checking every inch of every page with a magnifying glass, and then referring to every other book with the spell and inspecting those pages as well. Why, you ask? That’s excessive, you say! Imagine Lucius Malfoy lounging on your couch, three years after he practically killed you and two months after he supported your arch-nemesis. It was very, very creepy. Also, why couldn’t Harry get Merlin or for that matter, even Salazar Slytherin to help him?

“Late to class, Mr. Potter! Fifty points from Gryffindor!” Snape said, as soon as he entered the caver… room. “I suppose you think yourself too prestigious to be on time?”

Harry mentally rolled his eyes, because he might be a Gryffindor, but he’s not stupid enough to roll his eyes in front of Snape. He slept in, which is better than not sleeping in his opinion, but like that would matter to Snape.

Anyways, after the disastrous Potions lesson (Neville and Seamus blew up the cauldron, Ron’s was spewing something that was definitely poisonous, Hermione’s was perfect as usual. His potion just got vanished by Snape, for being too dramatic.), followed by an equally disastrous Transfiguration lesson (he definitely did not get his father’s transfiguration skills because he gave Ron a pumpkin head instead of turning Ron’s hair purple), followed by Care of Magical Creatures (which might have been the worst because they were doing utterly boring unicorns. Okay, unicorns were interesting, but they don’t like guys and Harry is apparently no exception to that rule.), Harry was finally free!

Now, Harry’s main task was to hunt down his helpers. Or maybe he should call them minions? He could always call them fluke accidents, but that made them sound like his children and they were all older than him. Some by more than 20 years. Hunting them down took him less time than anticipated, he was hoping for more time to figure out what to say, but Fred and George found him in less than a minute. It took them less than a minute to find him when he set foot in Hogwarts! And they didn’t even have the Marauder’s Map!

“So, Harrykins -” one of them started. (Harry promptly gave up on figuring out who was who.)

“What’d you need help with?”

“I mean, you did ramble a bit,”

“Last night, but you see,”

“We were slightly more focused on the fact,”

“That Bill was here,”

“And Lucius Malfoy,”

“And Rabastan Lestrange.”

“And Regulus Black,”

“And whoever that Van Bran guy was.”

“So, we were just curious,”

“As to why we suddenly,”

“Oh, yes, very suddenly,”

“Have memories that are old,”

“Much older than even Hogwarts.”

“And of course,”

“Whether we are allowed to use these memories.”

“To do stuff, like I don’t know,”

“Prank people,”

“Turn their hair blue,”

“Or green,”

“Or black teeth,”

“And pink skin,”

“And -”

“Fred, George. Do shut up!” A voice interrupted them. Harry looked up and saw Bill, but why was he swaying so much? And why was the Earth spinning?

He blinked.

He took a moment to reorient himself.

Oh, thank Merlin and all the gods that exist for Bill. Fred and George had sandwiched him and proceeded to do a rapid-fire twin-speak, all the while transporting him to this fancy room, whatever it was called, wherever it was. He almost clutched his head, because twin-speak was very, very dizzying and he was now nauseous and hypnotized. Never mind, he did clutch his head and bend down to sit. His head was just spinning worse and worse and worse and worse, and he didn’t remember anything else.

Chapter Text

They were arguing. That was probably the least of his problems, but their argument was the most entertaining thing he had witnessed in his life. There were quite a few reasons for this, the least of which was that they weren’t referring to the others by their own names, but by names of some fictional characters, probably.

“Why did you even tell him anything, least of all about our entire lives? No. Don’t you dare walk away from us now, Laurë!” One voice stated, and another voice, much closer than the first, scoffed.

“You have no right to even speak, Timo. You left me first!” Harry didn’t know who that was but that seemed like a completely valid reason to walk away from someone. “You jumped into a chasm of fire, for god’s sake!”

It seemed that the other person had nothing to say to that. And now that the drama seemed completely done - they weren’t talking anymore after all, Harry opened his eyes and groaned. Immediately, seven pairs of eyes were on him.

“So, what were you guys arguing about?” He asked, and they exchanged looks. Apparently, none of them had anything to say to him, typical of everyone in his life. Except Elvis Von Brandt.

“Looks like I found another Tolkien lover amongst the uncultured wizards of Britain.” He said, and Harry stared.

It’s not that Harry had never heard of Tolkien, he had read the hobbit once, but he didn’t know anything along the lines of what they had been talking about. And Elvis, who had somehow received the uncanny ability to know exactly what was on someone else’s mind (why couldn’t Harry do that? It would make his entire life so much easier!), anyways, Elvis gave him something that was a smirk, or a grin?

“We were roleplaying the Silmarillion. Very interesting story, that one.” Elvis looked completely wistful and sounded entirely sarcastic.

Fred and George coughed, completely unconvincingly, if Elvis’ glare was anything to go by. Completely lost, (why wouldn’t he be? It’s not like he’s woken for the second time that day hoping he’d made a mistake. The minions were unfortunately still not gone.) he turned to Regulus (his brother was trustworthy, so maybe he was too? Harry wasn’t holding out too much hope on that.) who was looking on with a completely amused expression. Harry honestly did not understand what was so amusing in this entire mess.

Bill did not seem to agree with Elvis’ statement. “The Silmarillion ends with almost everyone dead, abandoned, traumatized or all three and an entire continent destroyed. Pray tell how any of Tolkien’s works are good in any way?”

“Hey!” Harry probably should not be protesting, since he’d never actually read the Silmarillion or the Lord of the Rings for that matter, but the hobbit was nice! “The hobbit is good!”

All seven were back to looking at him. It was creepy in a not so creepy way? Why were they even looking at him? Elvis was grinning smugly, the rest of them looked completely done with the world.

“See, someone agrees with me!” Elvis stated. “In fact, Lord of the Rings is wonderful as well. The Exiles return to Aman and Sauron is defeated!”

Bill glared at the last part. It was a completely furious and irritated glare and completely aimed at Elvis. Harry was suddenly afraid of Bill, but Elvis (who the glare was aimed at) looked completely serene. In fact, he looked gleeful, cheerful, entertained? Harry wasn’t sure what to make of these people, these wizards (were they wizards?), but he did know that most of them weren’t completely sane.

“So…” Harry turned to the sanest individuals in the room - Fred and George Weasley. (Dear gods, he was really desperate, wasn’t he? He was considering Fred and George Weasley to be the paragon of sanity! What was wrong with the world?) “What exactly happened?”

“You passed away?” Malfoy stated. It sounded more like a question, but he said it like a statement. Harry hoped it was a question. The twins sniggered, Von Brandt and Bill looked exasperated, and Black looked completely satisfied. Harry was confused, very, very confused, until the implications of the statement hit him.

“I’m what?” Harry yelped. He hoped he wasn’t dead! He had a lot to live for, like… Well, actually, he didn’t have much to live for, but that wasn’t the point. He still wanted to be alive, not dead. Was he a ghost? Would he know if he was dead?

“You passed out.” Lestrange corrected Malfoy. Harry sighed in relief. So, he wasn’t dead. He nodded at Lestrange in thanks, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he had just thanked a death eater. Could his life get any… actually, never mind. He’s not completing that sentence.

“Right, back to matters of importance,” Black started.

Wait a second, wasn’t his life actually important? You know, considering all this was because of him? Perhaps they should actually be ensuring he was fine. Would they even listen to what he would have to stay? Curious, curious. Damn it all, he was starting to sound like Ollivander in his head! Next time he would start sounding like a lunatic out loud! He was definitely reading the fine print of everything thrice before he did anything even remotely related to getting help or acting against dark lords or for that matter, even homework!

Black hadn’t even paused for Harry to finish his internal monologue, so Harry was left with seven people looking expectantly at him again. This time though, he had no clue why they were staring at him. Unwilling to let them know that the hadn’t been listening, he scowled.

“Can we go for dinner?”

Chapter Text

“Can we get rid of Umbridge?” Fred and George asked, as soon as they cornered him. It hadn’t been a week since his minions had shown up, and they were already trying to get rid of people.

“Why are you trying to get rid of a teacher?” Bill asked, walking out from the shadows and giving Harry a mini heart attack.

What was it with them and attempting to kill him? Weren’t they supposed to be helping him? Though maybe killing him was the best way to help him? Hmm… that was something to think about. Pushing those thoughts out of his head, Harry tuned back into the conversation.

“Ooh! Did I hear something about murder?”

And Lucius Malfoy was there as well. He looked positively gleeful if his wide grin and the fact that he was skipping were anything to go by. Or maybe he was actually sad. Who knows with these death eaters?

“We aren’t killing anyone,” Bill said flatly, not even very invested in the conversation anymore.

He made murder sound like something that was a child’s play toy, and he would rather play with it later over sooner. Okay, that didn’t make sense even in his head. Time to get the meaningful conversations back on track anyway, because murder was something not to be participated in. Was it? Gah, he was now questioning his morals.

“Why are we getting rid of Umbridge?” Harry asked, curious to know the twins’ reasons. Also, he didn’t want to think of his gradually worsening morals anymore.

“Well, Harrykins,” Twin 1 started, perhaps this was Fred? Okay, let’s say this was Fred, hmm… his eyes were a darker blue than George’s. Hah! Take that, you confusing, identical people! Back to the conversation. He had missed the beginning, but it seemed like they were only just getting to the interesting bits.

“So, she tells us all to repeat a good morning wish back to her and treats us all like seven-year-olds!” George said, and then Fred took over.

“And then, throughout the lesson, she refuses to allow us to actually practice the spells. Apparently, we’re only doing theory!” Their arms were flailing around.

By the time they were done, Harry didn’t remember which twin was which anymore, and that nifty observation had been pushed into the ‘forgotten’ pile in his brain. But more importantly, he had figured out that Umbridge was a horrible teacher who would probably lead to ‘death by neglecting of education’, if that existed. One more teacher to add to the messy pile of horrible DADA teachers. At least the first four taught him very, very practical defense if their aim was to attack him themselves. Ah well!

“Harry?” He heard Elvis’ voice through his thoughts, and immediately tuned back into the real world. Elvis grinned sharply at him.

“Oh, you aren’t dead!” Lestrange said, and where did he come from? Also, why did he sound so disappointed?

Before Harry could do anything about it, Bill smacked Lestrange, hard. The twins laughed at him openly, as did Malfoy and Black. Would you look at that, the entire troop of his minions had shown up. Perhaps he should go and hide himself away for a while?

“It won’t work,” Elvis said, and Harry turned to him in shock. How on earth did he know what Harry was thinking? It was really not fair that he could read minds! Harry wanted to read minds too, it would make his life so much simpler!

“What?” Was the only word he was able to get out, but hopefully Elvis understood what he meant.

“You can’t hide from any of us for long,” Elvis said, obviously unaware of the fact that his sentence sounded completely ominous, but none of them had a problem with murder, so maybe their logic and morals are completely skewed?

Harry should have honestly run away from them. He should have really, really run away right in that moment, when he realized that their morals were skewed. Because following that, things just got worse.

Not immediately, of course not. But a day later, after Harry had sat through another of Umbridge’s classes, he was done with being nice and polite!

“Can we kill Umbridge?” he asked, as soon as they ambushed him. He barely spent a couple of seconds thinking about the fact that they seemed to be stalking him, which should have worried him.

“Hmm… looks like we are contemplating murder!” Malfoy exclaimed again, and this time Harry was positive he was being gleeful. Maybe this wasn’t a very good idea?

“Oh yes,” The twin currently dubbed Fred, threw an arm over his shoulder from Harry’s right. “That pink toad deserves everything that’s coming to her!”

“She put us in detention for calling her a pink toad! Can you believe it?” The other twin, George, exclaimed. Harry is a little preoccupied by the fact that these are the slowest words he has heard from either of them and the fact that they should be thrown in detention for calling a teacher a pink toad, however horrible the teacher was.

“So, murder!” Lestrange started, with a clinical tone to his voice. “Are we going for public and humiliating, or subtle and unknown? Or maybe everyone knows who did it, but it can’t be proved? Or are we framing someone else?”

“Ooh!” Black joined in, and whatever resemblance he shared with Sirius was gone with that one word, and his tone while saying it. “Are we doing a hanging, poisoning or accidental death? We can arrange any type, you know?”

“Even a suicide!” Elvis exclaimed, and Harry was struck with the realization that he was the sanest person in the group, and if he was encouraging them to murder people, then who was going to stop them? And with that, common sense sets back in, and so does his morals.

“I’m sorry!” He said to the group, and then immediately backtracked. Why was he even apologizing? He was stopping a murder; he didn’t have to apologize to anybody!

“Right, never mind! We aren’t killing anyone!” He completed his statement with a happy little smile, which is promptly erased by the chorus of ‘aww’ that follows.

“Ah, looks like his common sense returned!” Bill said, picking his nails nonchalantly. He had clearly been waiting for this.

The rest of them looked so sad that Harry was tempted to let them murder Umbridge because otherwise they were going to make him sad! Wait a second! They hadn’t even been there a week and they were already influencing him! Oh, Merlin! This was not good; this was not good at all! He was doomed! Completely doomed!

“Oh, don’t worry Harry!” Elvis said, and Harry turned to the foreigner desperately hoping everything was a joke. “We’re all doomed!”

Chapter Text

Harry wasn’t even ashamed to say he ran away at that statement. And he was sure that behind him those minions of his were totally unconcerned. He was hoping for some peace and quiet, so hiding out in an abandoned hidden passage seemed like the way to go. And just like usual, all his hopes were dashed not two minutes into his hiding, when Ron and Hermione conveniently chose that passage to go through. Why was the world against him?

“Harry, mate!” Ron exclaimed and Harry covered his ears. He was not dealing with this now! Absolutely not, he refused. Ron didn’t seem to get the message if his continued speaking was any clue. “Where have you been? We’ve been searching for you for hours now!”

He even sounded a little concerned at that. Who would have thought Ron Weasley, with the ‘emotional range of a teaspoon’ would be concerned? Despite Ron’s concerns however, Harry was aiming for peace and quiet. Ron and Hermione? Not peace and quiet.

“Ron, look at him. We should give him some space,” Hermione said, and tugged on the red-head’s arm. Harry nodded forcefully. The faster they went away, the better for him.

“No way, Hermione. We should stay with him, or we’ll never find him again!”

And there went any hope of peace and quiet for him. The two started bickering, volume rising as they focused completely on their point of view and whatnot. Harry took the opportunity to put on his Invisibility cloak and silently exited the hidden passage.

Under the safety of the cloak, Harry roamed around the castle at a loss for what to do. That spell caused him more problems than it solved. He should really go to the library and research the disaster he had gotten himself Into, but what if he just forgot to read something and then made the entire situation worse?

“Oh yeah, that is a very valid concern,” Elvis said, leaning against the wall in front of him and Harry jumped out of his skin in fright. If anyone ever asked, he didn’t shriek loudly. At all.

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked, scowling suspiciously at the guy. He had never heard of him before and didn’t know anything about him. In fact, he didn’t even know If the guy was a wizard!

“I am not a wizard!” Elvis said looking completely affronted. “What a horrid thing to be!”

Harry had the feeling Elvis was talking about someone entirely different and unrelated to normal wizards, but he was offended by the statement, nonetheless.

“That’s rude, all things considered,” Harry stated, mildly. He wasn’t up to being rude right now, besides the fact that he wanted silence and escape from certain people. He pointedly aimed the thought at Elvis, who didn’t even flinch. The guy looked unconcerned.

“Perhaps it was, or maybe it wasn’t.” Elvis stared off distantly. Then, he seemed to come back to himself. “So, what are you researching?”

“Is the poor boy researching something?” Regulus Black asked, striding past him and heading in the direction of the library. Harry had the urge to retort, saying that he wasn’t a poor boy, but he had barely opened his mouth and someone else spoke.

“I heard he’s pretty rich,” Malfoy said, patting Harry’s head like he was some kind of pet. “Lots of money in that Gringotts vault of his.”

“How interesting,” Lestrange said, brow furrowed in thought. Harry knew he was going to absolutely regret his spell. “You think we can break in and steal some of that stuff?”

“Are we breaking into Gringotts?” Harry was sure it was Fred who spoke.

“The challenges you provide us with, Lestrange,” George said, a mischievous grin lighting up his face.

“Alright, no!” Harry Interrupted before this could get too out of hand. “None of you are breaking into Gringotts! Nuh-uh, nope! I disagree.”

“Bill, tell Harry we should break into Gringotts,” Lestrange said, a beaming grin on his face. Beside him, Black and Malfoy looked as innocent as angels. Harry didn’t believe them for a second.

“You lot are not breaking into Gringotts! No way!” He stated again, aghast at their ideas. Why was he the one with common sense here? He hated having common sense. Well, no, he didn’t, but… Merlin, he wanted to strangle them. Why were they making him question his identity?

“You should let go of it then, just to see what happens,” Elvis whispered in his ears, and he jumped out of his skin.

“Stop trying to kill me!” He shrieked loudly, glaring at all of them. At this point, he was regretting all his life decisions. “And don’t do anything against the law!”

They nodded solemnly and Harry sighed. Thank Merlin and all the gods they listened. He walked to the library, his troupe of merry weirdos following him. For once in his life, everything was calm and nice.

Shattering his dream, a voice piped up, “Dumping Umbridge in the Forbidden Forest isn’t actually against the law, you know?”

Chapter Text

“Harry Potter, we’ve come to get you!” A cold voice floated on the wind, chilling him to the bone. He shot up, wide awake to stare at the laughing face of Rabastan Lestrange. Harry cursed the man violently as he stormed to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

From breaking into Gringotts, a topic they still hadn’t dropped, to murdering Umbridge, the topics of conversation of his minions were utterly nerve-wracking. If anyone was to overhear their conversations, Harry was going to get into so much trouble it wasn’t even funny.

“I want the lot of you out of my way today,” he said, as they caught up to him in a relatively abandoned hallway.

Harry pitied the poor kids who were making out when Fred and George made obnoxious faces at them. The kids, however, didn’t seem to notice the adults standing around him, which Harry found odd.

“But why?” Malfoy pretended to whine like a little child, and the resemblance to his son was so shocking that Harry had to blink a couple of times to get it out of his head.

“Don’t you like us anymore?” Lestrange gave some truly awful puppy eyes. And all around Harry, that expression was mirrored (except for Bill, who seemed to be contemplating murder again.), leading to a disconcerting effect of double vision and déjà vu.

Harry stuck his tongue out, very maturely. If they could bring out the puppy eyes (which they did), then sticking his tongue out wasn’t unfair at all.

“I never liked you lot!” Harry replied finally.

“You never liked us?” Bill asked, astounded and with such a guilty expression on his face, Harry felt guilty just looking at it.

“I always liked you, Bill,” Harry said, not wanting to be offended. “It’s the rest of them I don’t like.”

“Not even us?” George? asks, waving at himself and the other twin, who Harry was certain was Fred.

“Sometimes,” Harry replied grudgingly, walking into the Great Hall. As he sat down, he saw the utterly miserable expressions on the others’ faces, and he ground his teeth together. “Sometimes all of you are really nice.”

And then he focused on his breakfast because emotions and teenage boys are not a good combination as he has learned. Just when the fact that he was surrounded by seven people he barely knew slipped his mind slightly, Ron sat down a couple of seats away (exactly avoiding said seven people) and called his name.

“Harry! There you are,” Ron started. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, mate. But you were asleep yesterday, and the twins warned me about going near you today. They haven’t pranked you, have they?”

Harry scowled into his bowl. Ron’s concern was all well and good, but how did he not notice the twins and five other people at the table with them right now? Because Ron had certainly not commented on the fact that Lucius Malfoy was sitting at the Gryffindor table. Which was so headache-inducing now that Harry thought about it. A Malfoy, at the Gryffindor table. Oh, the horror!

“Terrible, isn’t it?” Elvis commented again, reading his mind. “Who’s the sneering, mean-faced man at the head table?”

“Hmm… oh,” Harry turned to the head table and Snape’s sneering face caught his eye. “That’s Snape, the potions master.”

“He’s terrible at teaching,” one of the twins added, helpfully.

“He’s terrible at a lot of things,” Malfoy added, absent-mindedly, spearing a piece of bacon with his fork viciously. Next to him, Lestrange did the same thing, as if mocking Malfoy. And third in line, Black copied the same thing with a slightly too sharp grin.

At that, the twins did it too, just to avoid being left out. Malfoy lost his temper and exploded upwards, launching across the table in a single jump and pushing the twins’ smirking faces into their food. Harry turned away from the efficient and brutal roughhousing that followed. He turned to Elvis instead.

“How can you read my mind?” He asked and Elvis smiled mysteriously. Harry had the feeling he would say something along the lines of ‘That’s for me to know and for you to find out!’.

But Elvis answered truthfully, explaining it. “You project your thoughts, Harry. It’s very easy for anyone trained in the mind arts to pick them up. Or even take a peek into your head and read your surface thoughts.”

Harry frowned at that. “And who all are trained in these mind-arts?”

Elvis glanced at him blankly. But Bill turned to him in earnest.

“Everyone with any idea about the existence of mind-arts has trained in it. They’d be stupid not to. But amongst the people here, who can actually peek into your mind?” Bill paused and glanced around. “Probably the seven of us, as a special case, Snape and Dumbledore.”

“A special case?” Harry tossed back, curious despite himself. This was pretty interesting. Reading someone’s mind, how much simpler it would make his life! And it was also pretty interesting that he had never heard of this before. Did the safety of a student’s mind count as safety in general? Because that was not being taken care of. Dumbledore’s security, here’s another flaw!

“Aren’t we special?” Elvis asked, a spark in his eyes. Harry didn’t reply to that.

Breakfast was more important than their confusing and obscure statements. Regrettably, looking back at the table meant looking at the destruction that was left of the meal. For something that was definitely not the last time, Harry groaned pitifully and ignored the mess left behind in favor of his classes. (Oddly, nobody else noticed the mess). There went his breakfast (It was still the most important meal of the day.).

With some stroke of fate, he was left alone for the rest of the day and the rest of the week. That left him with a sense of false safety that he would regret far beyond his death.

Chapter Text

“Harry!” Hermione’s voice pulled him from his sleep, and he woke up calmly for the first time in a long time. There were no minions around, no dark lords in his head, no nightmares, and best of all, no one had disturbed him at all!

“Yes, Hermione?” Harry asked, practically beaming. Today was going down in history as the best day of his life. And nobody would tell him otherwise.

Hermione, on the other hand, seemed a little off-put by his beaming.

“You look weird. What are you planning Harry?” Hermione asked, forgetting whatever she was going to say and curious about his current going-ons.

“Well, to be honest, Hermione,” Harry almost sang. (Hermione’s face went from curious and reserved to absolute horror and displeasure. Harry ignored that.) “I did this spell, you know, practice and all, and then suddenly, these seven people started following me. Today, I’m going to get rid of them!”

Hermione looked suspicious and wary. “Do you mean to say you’re going to kill seven people?”

Harry frowned and then beamed. “Why would you think that Hermione? Do you think I’m capable of killing someone?”

Hermione’s expression eased. “Of course, not Harry. Get ready and I’ll meet you in the common room.”

Harry nodded, happily, but Hermione paused before she left. “The twins wanted to see you about something, by the way.”

And then she was gone, leaving Harry with a sense of foreboding. The twins wanting to see him was not good, not good at all. Quickly, he got ready and raced to the common room to meet Hermione. Ron was missing, which Harry found off, but now wasn’t the time to ponder that.

‘Now is the time to run,’ he thought, seeing the twins.

“Hey, Hermione, how about we leave for the Great Hall right about now?” Harry asked, dragging her out of the portrait without waiting for a response. A few staircases down, he turned back to see the twins still following him. They gave him a grin that was not even slightly comforting.

Hermione forced them to a stop and turned to him, patience running out. “Harry, why are you acting like this?”

Harry laughed nervously, watching as the twins joined by Lestrange neared them. “Hermione, how about I tell you all about it in the great hall?”

She still looked suspicious, and her curiosity wasn’t sated at all, but she started heading towards the Great Hall. Quickly Harry followed her, not turning back to look at the helpers. If he couldn’t see them, they didn’t exist. He breathed a sigh of relief as they walked into the Great Hall and took a seat at the Gryffindor table.

“Now, what is going on?” Hermione asked, exasperated and stern. Harry gulped as he saw the twins enter the hall. Terrible timing those twins.

“Would you believe me if I said that I performed a spell that called seven people to help me, but nobody else can see or hear these seven people?” Harry blurted out and then stopped in horror.

What if the entire thing was in his mind? Had he finally gone round the bend, off his rocker? But then, he reasoned, they wouldn’t be calling for murder, because Harry’s morals were perfectly fine, and Harry didn’t want to murder anyone. Did he? Oh god, Merlin, anyone, what the hell was going on? And why was he using the word ‘murder’ so much? He didn’t want to kill anyone, but what if he did? What if he had? It wouldn’t be too bad if it was Umbridge or Snape or someone equally mean (like his previous Defense teachers, possibly excluding werewolf-Remus.).

He closed his eyes and opened them and then blinked. Those so-called helpers were influencing him even when they weren’t around! This was not even in the realm of positive! They were all lunatics! Even the twins, and Bill! Even himself!

Wait, what? Harry wasn’t a lunatic at all, dammit. Or maybe he was… he was talking to himself, after all. So, what’s to say he was sane? Dumbledore wasn’t sane.

Harry looked to the head table at that. If Dumbledore wasn’t sane, and it wasn’t too bad if Umbridge or Snape was murdered, then what was he so worried about? He could feel it now, an itching feeling, like static under his skin and butterflies doing acrobatics in his stomach. Wait a second, where was Snape?

“Where is Snape?” He asked Hermione, who was peacefully eating her breakfast. He hadn’t started yet, but this was slightly higher on his list of priorities. Then he stopped himself mentally again. Why was Snape higher on his list of priorities than his own breakfast? To quote Ron here - ‘he needs to sort out his priorities!’

He turned to look for the twins and found them standing right behind him.

“God!” He jumped again. They had to stop doing that. “What is going on?”

“So,” the twin Harry assumed was Fred said, grinning cheerily. “We’re ready to tell you our story.”

“Um… what do you mean?” Harry asked, completely side-tracked. “And don’t try to side-track me!”

“You know, the memories from like thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago? The ones we didn’t remember?” George was grinning in an exact mirror to Fred.

“Yeah,” Harry brightened. “Does that mean you remember now?”

“About that,” Lestrange said, leaning over Hermione’s shoulder to peek at her book. “We’ve had our memories from the beginning.”

Harry blinked and then frowned. “You’re telling me you knew exactly who you were and whose memories you had from the beginning, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Look, Harry, no offense, but we wanted to see if you’d be able to handle it.” Black stated, deadpan.

Harry took offense to that statement, and he wanted to smack Black’s face, but that would make him feel like he was hitting Sirius, which was too disturbing to imagine. So, he turned to look at someone else only to land on Elvis, who had a smug smile, which made him want to hit him as well!

“So, did I pass?” He asked, mentally preparing to stick his tongue out at them. He was performing the other spell he found regardless of whatever happened! Even the gods couldn’t stop him from performing that spell and saving himself from madness.

He probably imagined Elvis’ voice in his head saying he was mad already, but he resolutely ignored it. It was not necessary.

They grinned, giving him that same sense of déjà-vu. It was disconcerting, their similarities.

Finally, George rolled his eyes. “Of course, you did!”

Harry stomach plummeted at the sight of their smiles. This was going to be the most amount of terrifying entertainment he would get in his life!

Chapter Text

When they were done, Harry could do nothing but sit there completely mind blown. That was the most ludicrous story he had ever heard. He barely believed it, but he knew what the spell was supposed to do and it matched their explanations a little bit.

“Can you repeat that?” Harry said, lost on what to say to the story they had relayed. “You’re telling me that you guys were immortal elves?”

“That is what we said,” Lestrange, Caranthir? said, deadpan and scowling. Harry ignored him for the moment.

“And you all fought in many battles?”

There was a sigh and an eye roll, but Bill nodded in affirmation.

“You mainly went to war because you swore an oath to retrieve three gems?”

Lestrange looked like he wanted to bash Harry’s head in, and Malfoy looked just about ready to be anywhere but the room. Harry took the resounding silence as a yes.

“You also might have killed your own kin, and kidnapped children?”

“Just the two children,” Elvis ‘please-call-me-Maglor’ clarified, as if that made it any better.

“And by kin, we mean elves. It’s like humans killing humans, pretty common.” One of the twins clarified, not comforting Harry in the slightest.

“Alright, whatever. Not my problem right now.” Harry claimed waving his hand in front of himself. There were slightly more pressing matters, such a) how nobody else could see them. And he couldn’t believe that he just thought that there were more pressing matters than the fact that he was surrounded by murderers, but well, ignorance is bliss.

“And what is your problem right now?” Black asked, peering at him like he was some science experiment. From what he’d heard about Regulus Black and Curufin, he probably was a science experiment.

“How come no one else can see you?” Harry asked and continued with the rapid-fire questions. “Don’t most of you have work? Or lives to be living currently? I know Bill is supposed to be working in Gringotts currently.”

The gleam in Black and the twins’ eyes meant trouble, Harry knew, and he winced at the thought.

“Bill is supposed to be working in Gringotts,” George breathed out as if just coming to that realization. And the dawning horror Harry felt at the thought of their conversation a day or two ago was chilling.

“No. No. No,” he shook his head wildly, standing up and flailing his arms, much to Maglor’s amusement. “I don’t care who the lot of you were, you are not breaking into Gringotts.”

“We could only break into vaults of supposed Death Eaters,” Lestrange suggested fire in his dark eyes.

“You are a death eater,” Harry shot back, and then he sat down in shock. He was getting comfortable around them. A bit too comfortable, and if the story they told him was correct, he didn’t even know them.

That was the worst thought to be had in his life. Harry was getting comfortable with having a murderous redhead, lunatic twins, a mind-reading stranger, and three death eaters following him around and essentially stalking him. Just what was going on in his life for this to be normal?

It didn’t help that they hadn’t revealed who they were to him. To him, they seemed like relatively normal, if eccentric, siblings. Could he really trust his judgement if they could deceive him this easily?

‘We’ve had practice with it,’ Maglor said, and Harry shook his head to dislodge the thought.

He needed time to process, and he needed to be away from the seven elves as he did. He wasn’t even slightly ashamed to say that he ran away again, much to the seven brothers’ confusion and disappointment.

Obviously, they wanted to recruit him to break into the most secure bank in the world. But Hogwarts was the most secure building, and Harry knew how utterly lax the security around here was. Dumbledore’s measures were truly questionable. And if Hogwarts was the most secure building in the world, then surely Gringotts wouldn’t be too difficult to break into!

When the reality of his thoughts hit him, Harry let out a half-groan, half-scream. This was getting to the point where it was horrifying. He wasn’t a delinquent. He did not contemplate murder or torture or thievery or breaking and entering!

‘What about arson?’ Maglor’s voice whispered in his head, threaded with the softer voices of the twins. He could hear the teasing tone in his voice, with a bitter undertone, but he couldn’t deal with any of it for much longer. He didn’t want to be held responsible for the mess they would create.

At that, Harry made up his mind.

“Just leave me alone for a bit, why don’t you?” He said, changing course to the same abandoned classroom his life had changed in. He mentally revised the spell he was going to perform.

In the room, it took him all of ten minutes to set up everything as necessary, and in less than fifteen minutes, he started the spell. As before magic drained from his body, into the runes on the floor and dispersed in a shockwave.

Unlike last time, his magic connected to another source, leading to a shockwave.

When the shockwave reversed, there was a bright flash of light. Harry kept his eyes closed, hoping against everything that his spell worked this time. He opened his eyes to an empty room, the runes etched into the floor, but not glowing. He didn’t know what he had expected, but this wasn’t it.

Slumping in disappointment, Harry sat down.

Looked like he would be doing more research.

Hopefully they would stay away as he did said research.