Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, any of the characters or plots; they belong to J K Rowling. I just enjoy writing fanfiction :)
Chapter 1: No Reason to Stay
Looking out across the wreckage of Hogwarts, he couldn't stop the tears forming in the edge of his bright green eyes. Five years the second war was fought, five years it took to wipe out the majority of Magical Britain, even Hogwarts had fallen in the end, with the last of the resistance.
He had killed him, Tom was gone, and so were his Death Eaters, but it had cost him everything, everyone. The Order of the Phoenix had fallen apart with the death of Dumbledore, and slowly, painfully slowly, each member was killed. All to protect him. Even the muggles noticed, it was put down to terrorists, walking into muggle London you would find soldiers lining the street corners. Ordered to shoot at anyone wearing long black cloaks and white masks, it had been impossible to hide everything when the ministry fell, the image of the Death Eaters had got out; their carelessness was probably what tipped the balance in the end. Muggles were beneath them, but bullets were fast, faster than it took to put a shield up anyway.
The death of his friends had been the hardest blow to him, he had won, but lost everything, he had nothing left, nothing to stay for. That was probably what drove Harry Potter onwards in his insane plan, one which could fail and just kill him, not that it mattered in the end.
With the fall of the Ministry he could access the Department of Mysteries; secrets buried and forgotten for hundreds of years could be found, written on ancient scrolls and books, from a time long before Merlin. Dimension travel had been a concept, one of many, but he was more than willing to try. That was why, for the last four months he spent reading and revising Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, he couldn't fail, and all he needed was a power source now. That was to be Hogwarts, years of teaching students lead to a high concentration of magic in the small area, enough to allow him to cross over.
He knew he wouldn't travel dimensions far as such; the closest parallel dimensions would be similar to his, one key event changed or something. Really, he had no way of knowing what waited for him, but chances are, and with his luck, Voldemort would be there, and it was best he went prepared.
Harry packed all his stuff into a magical trunk, one containing five rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room and library. Plenty of clothes, enough food shrunk, frozen and stored, enough to last three to four months comfortably, books and lots of them, some old, some new, on everything from defence to healing potions. It had taken him ages, but from each book he'd removed the authors name, date of publish and replaced the front covers with plain covers, only the name of the book on the front and spine, they were colour coded, blue for defence, red for offence, green for potions and so on. It wouldn't do to get to another dimension and own books written by dead people or some other reason. Stores of potions ingredient, some illegal and very rare, but useful, along with a large storage of ready made healing potions, he had had to live on his own for a few years and he could hardly walk into St Mungos to get medical treatment. He had even collected all the gold he could find, Gringrotts had fallen within two years, money long protected was inaccessible to anyone, even Tom at the time. He had just over 54,000galleons with him, plenty to get off his feet, along with 20grand in muggle money, last thing he wanted was to get stuck in muggle London with no cash at hand.
Placing his muggle contacts in his eyes, the brilliant green changed to brown. Harry really did like his eyes, but they were too distinctive, and what would he do if his other dimensional self was alive? Last thing he needed was to look like his double, he had even got his hair cut, long enough to cover the scar, but different, and used muggle hair dye to change it to a dark brown, glamours could be removed, and it was better safe than sorry.
Pulling out his wand and walking to the centre of the rune circle, he had set it up in the forbidden forest so he wouldn't appear somewhere seen. Slowly chanting the long Latin words the rune symbols started to light up. With a blinding flash Harry Potter was gone from his world.
A/N: Not the best of starts but it'll do, story is AU after the half blood prince, I love dimension travel stories x) so couldn't resist starting one. I'm pretty new to writing fanfiction so be kind, this is the third story I've started, I've done my best with spelling but no doubt I missed something.