Title: The Existential Crisis
Disclaimer: Not mine, JKR's. Not making money off of this.
Feedback: Good, bad, anything would be appreciated.
Summary: Post-OotP. Harry finds out the past is as strange as a foreign country, finally gets every child's experience of being embarrassed by the behavior of their parents, discovers some things are timeless like love and the mark of a dark curse, and some things are subject to the whims of time like his existence.
CHAPTER ONE
Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter were walking towards the greenhouse for their Herbology lesson, when a boy dropped out of the sky and landed on top of Sirius, who crashed into James; creating a tangled pile of three bodies. Remus and Peter pulled the first body off of Sirius.
"Alright, Prongs?" Remus said to the lolling head of untidy black hair.
James moaned, and shook his head, before looking up. Remus frowned, something was off about James, but he couldn't figure out what it was.
"Profsslupin?" James slurred. James shook his head and cleared his throat, and said in a stranger's voice, "What are you doing here?" He gave a surprised stare. "Why do you look so young?"
Meanwhile, Peter was helping Sirius up, who was blinking and rubbing the small of his back. Sirius said, "What was that?"
At that, James whipped his head around, expression full of a pleased disbelief, as if finding out that it was his birthday and Father Christmas really did exist all in one go. "Sirius!" Then his expression fell into bewilderment. "But you're…" He shook his head, and said to himself, "…too young."
Sirius frowned and stared at James. "What happened to you, Prongs?"
The body on the ground groaned, and said, "You fell on me, you great heavy git."
Sirius helped the boy on the ground up, and it was James again, the real James. The boy Remus had mistaken for James stared at the real James, and blanched.
"Er," the boy said, "this wouldn't happen to be a strange new interactive Pensieve that I've fallen into, would it?"
"Who are you?" said James. "And why do you look like me?"
The boy whipped his head around, staring at the four boys in turn. Sirius and James took out their wands and pointed it at the boy. The boy ignored the threat, pulled up a sleeve, and pinched himself. He shook his head, and said to himself, "Not a dream."
A crowd of sixth year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were gathering, murmuring to themselves in shock. Professor Sprout forged through the crowd, shouting, "What is the meaning of this? Why isn't anyone in class?" before she got to the center, and stopped at the tableau. Her face darkened, "Alright. It's not funny. Whoever you are, tampering with Polyjuice Potion—that's serious trouble—"
"It's not Polyjuice," said the boy quickly. "Professor Sprout, you've got to take me to Dumbledore. Please, it's urgent."
"I'll say," said Professor Sprout. She glanced at the insignia on the boy's uniform. "Though I think I should take you to see Professor McGonagall first—she'll have words for a Gryffindor fooling around with such a dangerous potion."
"It's worse than that! Please, I need to see Dumbledore," said the boy, in a pleading tone.
Professor Sprout hesitated, then nodded slowly. She scanned the crowd of students, before catching sight of the gleam of a prefect's badge. "Miss Evans, you're in charge until I get back."
"Yes, Professor," said Lily Evans from the edge of the crowd, before turning round and barking orders.
The boy whipped his head around, and stared at Lily Evans with an intense look, before following Professor Sprout.
00000
"Ah, Mr. Potter, what have you been up to this time?" said Dumbledore as soon as Sprout and the boy came into the office. Then Dumbledore blinked, and gave the boy a sharp look. "You're not Mr. Potter."
"He's not Mr. Potter, but some foolish Gryffindor who used Polyjuice Potion to look like Mr. Potter," said Sprout with a look of disapproval.
The boy shook his head. "I'm not James Potter." He shifted his feet, then blurted out, "Professor, I think I may have traveled back in time. I'm Harry Potter. James Potter was my dad."
Dumbledore said nothing, but took out his monocle and peered at Harry through it. The monocle was charmed to show magical energies. Dumbledore read the vestiges of a powerful temporal spell, the sacrificial love protection in a vaguely familiar magical signature seeped into the boy's skin and pulsing with his every breath, the mark of a dark curse on his brow, and a protection and monitoring spell on him in his own magical signature.
"Very well. Professor Sprout, would you please leave us alone?" said Dumbledore, lowering his monocle.
Sprout gasped. "You believe the boy's preposterous story? A temporal spell is harder to work than even the Polyjuice."
"I do, because it's true," said Dumbledore blandly at Sprout's and Harry's incredulous looks. "Have a seat, Mr. Potter," he said when Sprout left. "Now how did you end up traveling back into the past?"
Harry ducked his head, and looked uneasy. "I was attempting this spell…it's sort of…I know I wasn't supposed to—" He took a deep breath, then said, as if saying it fast would make it sound not as bad, "I was attempting the Interstitial spell."
Dumbledore frowned, and his eyes glinted like blue steel. "You are aware that this spell is highly dangerous and forbidden, and meddles with forces that ought best be left alone?"
Harry nodded, mute with the awareness of his transgression.
"Since time travel was not your objective, what were you trying to do?"
Harry shut his eyes, a pained look coming across his face. "To see if I could bring someone back from the Veil."
"What Veil?"
Harry's mouth moved silently, before he said in a barely audible voice, "The Veil in the Department of Mysteries."
Dumbledore's gaze sharpened and became penetrating. Harry felt as if he was being stripped by that blue gaze, and every inch of himself was being measured. An inscrutable look passed through Dumbledore's face, and Harry waited for the verdict. Dumbledore pushed a dish towards him. "Lemon drop?" At Harry's gaping face, he said, "There's no use crying over spilt potion, child. I won't ask you for any more details. Foreknowledge is a dangerous thing."
"Er, Professor. I had two other people helping me. But they're not here." Harry hesitated, as if voicing the thought would make it true. "Is there a way to track them?"
Dumbledore shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. But I think, if you survived intact, and weren't ripped from existence, then they too have survived and still exist on some level. Since you were ripped from your time, I would speculate that they too, were temporally relocated."
Harry nodded, reassured that Hermione and Ron existed somewhere. They might be in a different time and place, but they were in the same situation. Somehow, that was reassuring.
Dumbledore took a lemon drop, and fell into a meditative silence. He debated turning over the boy to the Unspeakables, but knew that once they got ahold of the boy and subjected him to their examinations, they might never let him go. He thought back to what he saw with the monocle; his own magical signature, colored by great affection. His mind turned different aspects of the situation over, drawing on memory and lore and a sharp mind that was almost put in Ravenclaw.
Dumbledore came to a decision, and turned to Harry.
00000
Before dinner at the Great Hall, Dumbledore stood up from the High table, and said, "I am pleased to announce that we will be joined by Harry Harris. He has been sorted into Gryffindor, and is a sixth year. Please give him a hand in welcome."
The Great Hall filled with the sound of polite applause. Harry made his way to the Gryffindor table, and took the nearest seat to his father and friends.
"Er, hello," he said, stomach squirming as if he'd swallowed a whole pile of doxies. He looked at Sirius, alive and healthy and young. "I want to apologize about falling on you earlier."
Sirius looked at him, before his eyes became vague. He shrugged, and said, "Don't mention it. Madam Pomfrey healed me up in five minutes," before turning away to serve himself some chicken, and talking to Lupin.
Harry sat back, frustrated. How was he going to be able to talk to his parents, Sirius, and Lupin with the Unremarkable Spell Dumbledore placed on him? The spell caused people to think that the bespelled object was unremarkable in every way, and was supposed to prevent Harry from changing the timeline. If people found him unremarkable and average, then he wouldn't affect the timeline. Dumbledore had warned him that even with the spell in place, he was not to do anything to draw attention to himself. The spell was not strong enough to prevent people from noticing if Harry decided to jump on the table and cluck like a chicken, for example.
By the end of dinner, Harry decided to treat his situation as if he was in a very long memory in a Pensieve. He would get to see what his parents, Sirius, and Lupin were like when they were his age. He sent a glare at Wormtail, who continued on eating. He'd have to take care to preserve the timeline.
