Chapter Text
It was a shock to the system.
A shock to the system was putting it very mildly, but he was trying to remain calm.
One minute he was facing down a Dark Lord, and not just any dark lord, oh no, The Dark Lord.
He had walked willingly into the darkness of the Forbidden Forest, the light seeming to fade further with each extra step he took into the trees. His heart was beating in a surprisingly steady rhythm, it was a tempo faster than normal but not so fast as to create a feeling of panic.
He had accepted his lot in life from a young age, he had been made to. Lesson number one was simple: adults could not be relied upon. Most of them meant well he had come to understand as he joined the magical world, not that that good intention helped with anything and as the saying goes: if you want something done, well, do it yourself.
So, there he had been across the clearing staring down the wand of the Dark Lord—for the who even knew what number time. Calm in the face of his impending death, ‘as easy as falling asleep,’ he murmured to himself, grounding himself in the quiet background sounds of nature, breathing in the clean cold air for the last time. Not paying one whit of attention to everyone’s least favourite Tom as he performed what Harry was sure was his pre-prepared monologue.
Then the end approached, in a much flashier way than the Grim Reaper with his scythe, the bolt of deadly green magic shot towards him. In a silent salute to the ancestors he never got the chance to meet he opened his arms wide and stepped forward to greet death like an old friend.
And he knew no more.
‹‹ — — ››
…or so he thought.
Now, here he was, shrunk down in a tiny body, like super small.
Like all logical people upon waking up from death, he had been confused because excuse him arsehole, but he had been trying to make an important gesture! Relinquishing his life for the safety and protection of his friends and fellow magic wielders, just as his parents had done for him all those years ago.
Once he had worked through his annoyance at his sacrifice apparently not having been successful, he decided it might be a good idea to move and open his eyes.
He slowly peeled his eyes open millimetre by careful millimetre unwilling to give away any advantage he might need now that he had defied death a second time, sorry, buddy, he thought in apology to the entity who was once again prevented from reaping his soul.
The complete lack of trees and leaves and soil floor of the forest had thrown him off. Hence the confusion which had turned to panic as he tried to move his body only to find it a lot less, well less, than just a few moments before.
Panic he hadn’t felt when walking to his death was more than making up for that deficit now.
To discover he was not only not where he had gone to die but he was also unexpectedly much much smaller and weaker than he could ever remember being had been the last straw. A deep well of suppressed emotions decided to burst free of him, tears gathered in his eyes before quickly running down his face as hiccoughing sobs seemed to rob his lungs of air. Though despite the emotions currently dominating his new small body, robbing him of his hard-earned control, he still apparently retained what had become an engrained skill of how to cry silently so as not to draw attention.
So, he had lost some time to just feeling. Something he hadn’t allowed himself to do in well… probably longer than most people would consider to be healthy, but as he mentally shrugged to himself that was his life. Whoever said to cry it out and acknowledge your feelings may not be… completely stupid. Now, that that was done, he could focus on understanding his situation better.
The situation being that apparently he was a child again, and a very small child, so likely a young kid at that, maybe even a toddler.
Harry knew logically that kids were small, but not this small he thought. He waved a tiny fisted hand in what was meant to be annoyance but would, he thought with disgust, just have looked amusing to any onlookers. A baby waving their hand about as they seemed to like doing for no particular reason.
And yes, he had seen pictures of himself and other kids as babies and toddlers but he hadn’t really taken their tininess into account. He tended to be more focused on his parents and their friends that surrounded him and the small scene playing out than his diminutive size.
So now he was tiny, not super, super newborn tiny, but tiny nonetheless.
Trapped in a toddler’s body... wonderful.
‘Be the hero’, he was told. ‘Walk willing to your death,’ he was instructed. ‘Be the lamb for the slaughter in the name of the greater good of the wizarding world just as I planned,’ he meant, manically rubbing his hands like a villain from cartoons. So, maybe that last one hadn’t actually happened, but Harry felt he was entitled to a bit of hyperbole and anger towards his ex-headmaster.
And he had followed the plan set out for him like the good little golden boy he had been moulded into and look where that had got him… Tiny.
But Harry wasn’t bitter, no sir. What he was, yes you guessed it, was tiny.
And kinda cute, even if he did say so himself. The unexpected thought struck him as he caught sight of his features in a small handheld mirror that was propped up on a nearby chest of drawers. He had a little button nose, chubby cheeks, and big green eyes that he felt were almost a little too big on his face.
There were evenly spaced wooden bars that blocked part of his vision. He was in a cot, not the cupboard under the stairs. He should have cottoned on to that fact much earlier but he wouldn’t be too harsh on himself given he had been having an ever so tiny breakdown and it felt like some of his memories were hidden by a dense fog, he knew they existed but he couldn’t see them as it were.
Maybe the Dursleys had only moved him to sleeping in the cupboard once he got older, maybe the baby cuteness had won them over. He couldn’t ever remember a time in his first ten years with his relatives when he hadn’t been relegated to the cupboard.
But further details stood out to him as Harry looked around him a little more, moving to sit up and get a bigger range of vision of the room around him. The walls were painted a light blue and now that he was paying closer attention there were fluffy white clouds drifting across the space, the occasional bird appearing in sight for a few flaps before swooping out of sight again.
This was not number four Privet Drive. Repeat this was not the Dursleys’ house, a mental siren began flashing in his mind.
He was tiny and defenceless in an unknown magical location. Harry needed to get out or at least find out what in Merlin’s name was going on. Where was he, who had brought him here, and how did he return to his seventeen year old self?
Harry got himself up to be standing and allowed himself to take a moment of silliness and rattle the bars and silently scream as if he were trapped in a jail which made him laugh happily before he realised he actually kind of was stuck in a prison.
He reached upwards towards the top of the cot’s railing and was thankfully able to reach it, he wrapped him hands around it gripping firmly before straining to pull himself up. Surprise surprise his upper body strength wasn’t all that strong. But he wasn’t one to give up that easily so he gave himself a full body wiggle and began pulling again this time using his feet to try scrambling up the bars, he couldn’t quite get the oomph he wanted until he accidentally got his toes hooked around the bar and suddenly he had a foothold. Huzzah!
His bid for freedom was now a lot more effective, he was climbing and making an impressive dent on the distance, now at the top he was ready to work out how to get down the other side. Though he almost flopped straight back to the cot’s mattress when two arms suddenly appeared in his line of sight.
‘Waaa,’ he wailed the part-word part-sound in shock, arms windmilling as he tilted backwards from his precarious perch on the cot’s railing.
‘Hang on there, little bro, no need for the escape attempt,’ the unknown giant who had prevented his fall said in a teasing tone.
Harry blinked once in surprise at the sudden change in momentum, looking up to the giant- no, not a giant, just a regular human. The change from his normal perspective was more than a little confusing, his saviour now held him safely against their chest.
‘Did you have a good nap, Haz?’ The not-giant asked, brushing a gentle and soothing hand over Harry's hair, interrupting his processing.
Harry focused on the face of the arms’ owner and felt his thoughts freeze. That face shared a lot of similarities to his pre-shrinking face, the messy black hair, green eyes, and familiar button nose he was just admiring on his miniature face. This man had stolen his face, sure it wasn’t quite his old face but still.
The face stealer looked at him as if waiting for a response and when he didn’t receive one, he gave Harry a friendly little jiggle before shifting him to one arm reaching a hand towards his forehead whilst speaking again, ‘are you feeling okay, Harry? You’re normally a lot more talkative after a nap.’
He leaned back and ducked away from the hand approaching him before adding a murmured ‘yah,’ in response as he was unsure on how talkative or capable of talking he was or should be.
Face stealer’s forehead furrowed at Harry’s squirming away from his hand, slowly pulling it away as his eyes tracked over the toddler’s face, ‘okay, bud, you can come with me, I need a distraction from NEWT revision so if Mum asks you came to me, and as the sterling older brother I gave you my undivided attention, alright?’
‘Mkay’ Harry agreed after a beat, he wasn’t sure if his young face was showing the doubt and confusion he was feeling, he had just received a lot of information that didn’t seem to make any sense.
‘Not quite the enthusiastic, “yes, Dylan, my favourite brother, you and me are a united front against the tyranny of our revision obsessed mother” that I was hoping for baby bro, but I’ll take it,’ the newly dubbed Dylan said, the change in tone and expression throughout pulled an unexpected and childish bubbling laugh from Harry before the other’s words could fully hit him.
Brother.
Mother.
He was this Dylan guy’s brother.
Dylan, who had a remarkably Potter face, a name he hadn’t come across when looking into his family tree. Dylan who seemed to have the Evans eyes even if they were a different shade of green. How was this possible? He was again pulled from his thoughts by his new older brother.
‘My dastardly plan is funny to you, is it, Haz? Good, I’m taking your laughter as a binding agreement to stick to the plan,’ Dylan added with a quick tickle to his stomach causing Harry to laugh again louder and brighter than before. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ Dylan said as he headed out of the room, finally giving Harry a better view of the surroundings beyond the room he’d woken up in as they stepped across the threshold into a remarkably normal corridor.
‘James, can you check on Harry please?’ A woman’s voice called gently but the voice carried up from the stairs that were to his and Dylan’s right. The voice seemed to resonate within him but it wasn’t someone he could immediately identify. Then another thought struck.
James.
This was starting to really freak Harry out.
‘Sh-oot, quiet now, buddy,’ Dylan muttered, putting a finger to his lips as he continued stealthily down the corridor past three other doors, one Harry saw opened onto a bathroom.
Harry mimicked the gesture back to Dylan without really thinking, earning him a bright and mischievous grin in return, making Harry smile back at him.
‘Course, Lils,’ he heard a new male voice agree as they made it to the room on the opposite side of the corridor from the cot room.
Harry took in the new room he was in, there were a few of Gryffindor coloured things around the room, including a pennant and tie thrown haphazardly near a messy cupboard.
‘Okay, all yours, little bro,’ Dylan said lowering Harry to the floor where he immediately began to explore more closely. Harry looked around before deciding he’d get a better view from the large bed so he toddled over and began his second attempt at climbing of the afternoon. It turned out a duvet wasn’t the best choice of grip.
‘I can help-’ Dylan started to say reaching towards Harry.
‘No!’ Harry denied firmly turning to shoot an annoyed look at the older boy, he could do it himself.
‘Okay, okay, still asserting your independence I see,’ Dylan acquiesced, holding his hands up in surrender though he was smiling as if Harry were cute.
Harry just huffed at him and tried to find a different way to grip the duvet to climb it, and became annoyed when it still wasn’t working.
Dylan rolled his eyes behind the little boy's back, Harry was very stubborn for a toddler with an independent streak a mile wide. He decided to lie down on his bed thereby helping indirectly by keeping the duvet in place. He ruffled the two-year-old’s hair as he passed him getting another annoyed pout from the toddler.
‘He’s not here, Lils,’ came their dad’s concerned voice from the direction of Harry’s room.
Dylan saw Harry startle at the sudden loud voice, but the little boy quickly shook it off to take another attempt at scaling the bed. Dylan had to give it to the little guy he was determined, he gave a bright grin as Harry’s flushed face appeared above the edge of the bed, duvet firmly clasped in his hands.
‘What do you mean?’ He heard their mum call back.
‘I mean he’s not in his room, Lily,’ their dad replied, his tone taking on a hint of annoyance in his panic. They were much too protective of Harry in Dylan’s opinion, he might have been born premature but Harry was a trooper, you couldn’t keep this guy down if you tried.
When Harry noticed Dylan smiling gently at him he beamed in return before his eyes widened suddenly as he began to slip backwards, Dylan reached out to grab him lifting him onto the bed before he could slip too far.
‘Ta,’ Harry muttered grumpily as he was placed on the duvet beside Dylan.
Dylan could only smile at the disgruntled look on his brother’s face at having to get help. But was interrupted before he could reply, as Harry slowly made his way to his feet on the bed wobbling a little and rapidly reaching out grabbing a hold of Dylan’s head for balance.
‘Dyl, have you seen Harry?’ Their dad asked approaching the room, panic still colouring his tone.
‘Yeah, he’s with me,’ Dylan called easily in response, pulling another laugh from Harry as his lips moved under one of Harry’s hand.
‘Thank, Merlin,’ their dad murmured his relief evident as he poked his head round the door and saw both his sons. ‘You scared your dada, Harry,’ he added with gentle admonishment while he smiled at both boys.
Meanwhile Harry froze, in what seemed to be his new state of normal, with the bright grin still firmly fixed on his face. That was a face he knew from countless hours spent staring at photos, there were more lines and it looked older but he knew that face. James Potter, his father. But how?