Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If I claimed to, I would be summoned from this reality.

A/N: Tired of the cookie-cutter reality travel fic? Your favorite ones on hiatus or abandoned? Bored? Wondering why I'm trying to sell this after you've already clicked on the link? Read this original take on reality travel instead! (The beginning is pretty tropy, but that's necessary.)

There comes a time when you realize just how insignificant your life has been. Whether you win or lose, accomplish your life goals or not, death has a certainty and absoluteness to it which frightens even the bravest soul. Albus Dumbledore, perhaps, might feel no fear at his death. But I am not him. I suppose that I should unequivocally state before my death that I am Harry Potter, servant of none.

There comes a time when you wish you left a larger mark on the world. Made a difference. I thought I did, but really I didn't.

So I am reduced to writing this drivel to while away the hours. Drivel nobody will ever read. Perhaps I should explain how I find myself in this predicament, anticipating my inevitable demise.

There is no specific origin, no precise date to prescribe to when these events all began. They are on an unimaginable scale, as well as incomparable to any relevant dates that you might be aware of.

But for me in particular, it was June 24th, 2004 when I was first pulled into the fray. The end of the war. Victory Day.

~~Fractured Realities~~

It was over. All I could do was sigh in relief, rejoicing in the fact that my long-time nemesis, Lord Voldemort, was dead. It had been thirteen long years since I first met my parents' murderer. Around me my fellow freedom fighters, members of the ravaged Order of the Phoenix and the heroes of Dumbledore's Army, let out a cheer as the infamous dark wizard fell to the floor. There was still much work to do: Death Eaters to be rounded up, family to be mourned, and a Ministry to be retaken. But the brunt of the work had been finished here at Hogwarts. The late Tom Riddle had been the unifying factor of the purist regime, a symbol of power and fear which effectively pacified the masses.

But that reign of terror had passed. Four Horcruxes my team had destroyed: a locket, a cup, a diadem, a snake. Neville had proven himself to be a true Gryffindor when he executed Nagini just moments before the final duel.

With Voldemort's death, the rest of the Death Eaters at Hogwarts either fell or surrendered with ease. At last, I foolishly allowed myself to believe. At last I could lead the life I wanted to lead, not one born of necessity and duty but one shaped by my own desires. But fickle Fate, as always, had different plans. I just had yet to see them.

The first sign of anything wrong was a slight tugging in my gut as I embraced Hermione and Ron. I dismissed it, of course, as the product of one of the myriad of injuries I had sustained. I would get Madame Pomfrey to check it out later, I reasoned.

"It's over. It's over," sobbed Lavender Brown on the floor of the Great Hall. Below her lay the gored body of Fenrir Greyback, the very same werewolf who had mauled her almost six years ago. Seeing her tormentor dead gave her a sort of completion.

I turned my gaze, trying to find less depressing sights, but there were none to be found. All around, death and destruction made itself evident in the aftermath of the battle. The rest of the Weasleys sat at the old Gryffindor table; of the original nine, only Ron, Percy, and Arthur had survived.

The rest of Gryffindor house had been decimated, too. Looking around, I could only make out Oliver Wood, Parvati Patil, Dean Thomas, and the battered face of my faithful ally, Neville Longbottom. Countless others, undoubtedly, were holed up in hideouts or had fled the country. They would have to be coaxed back into society once order was established. Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and even Slytherin presented sights just as sorry as the first. I met the cool eyes of Astoria Greengrass, and flinched. She was a reluctant ally at best, especially after I killed the other three members of her family. She never forgave me for the cost of war. I never really forgave myself, either.

I made my way to the makeshift hospital area that Madam Pomfrey had set up after the Hospital Wing collapsed, unwilling to see any more solemn faces, any more potential sources of guilt. Neville intercepted me first. The pain in my gut intensified - perhaps it was just my body reminding me of my own guilt.

"Good job, Harry," he greeted, clapping me on the back. "We've weathered the storm." He had grown a lot from the timid boy on the train who had lost his toad and from the boy who had fallen off his broom and had lost his Remembrall to Malfoy. In fact, Neville was the one who finally took out the bastard, with a precision shot from a broom. But right now he sounded much more optimistic than me, despite his hardened view of the war.

"It's not really over, though. We have to retake the Ministry, set up a viable government, and finally stamp out blood prejudice. Will that aspect of the war ever really cease? Such bias will always exist, and then our children and our children's children will fight this same battle. Sans the Horcruxes, luckily." Indeed, Dumbledore had stamped out any mention of that particular subject.

He regarded me seriously. "Then we keep fighting. That's what we've done our whole lives, and will continue to do so for the rest, if we have to. We believe in our cause, they believe in theirs. But what separates them from us, Harry, is that we endure. We will never give up. They hide in the shadows and bide their time. They switch loyalties on whims, based on survival. And men like Voldemort, they have no loyalty. Not to a person, not to a cause. We do. And we believe in freedom and equality, for all humans, regardless of magical ability. We value not magic and heritage, but rational thought, courage, and willpower."

That was what I always needed, what the fighters always needed when the going got tough. Neville was eloquent in a way that I was not, and could voice our beliefs, hopes, and dreams.

"I just want a future," I confided for what felt like the thousandth time. "No fate, no responsibilities except the ones I choose."

"Don't we all, Harry? That's what everyone who fought wished for." The unspoken especially the ones who died is noticeable, too palpable, and I felt the sudden urge to vomit, remembering how Ginny had fallen. We had broken up, but she still dreamed of a future together, one struck down by the iridescent green of Dolohov's Killing Curse. Astoria, of all people, had later strangled him to death. "For the Weasleys," she had said. Because nobody should have to lose a loved sister and precious sibling. Those words had been rather pointed.

I suddenly doubled over in pain, feeling strings pulling my intestines apart. And my scar began burning, unbearably. I clutched it tightly, but the feeling did not go away; if anything, it burned worse.

"Are you okay?" asked Neville. But we both knew that I likely wasn't. Some last-ditch trick of Voldemort's - perhaps he wasn't as arrogant as we had thought. Others were rushing over now.

"It's probably Voldemort's doing," I gritted out. I could now feel the burning throughout my body, and faintly registered Neville grasping me, unwilling to let me fall.

Suddenly I felt like laughing. I went all this way only to be killed by my own arrogance, by our collective faith in our character analysis of Voldemort? "Everything seems so futile now," I whispered, the entire crowd hanging on my words as Neville continued to hold me up.

"We defeated Voldemort," insisted Neville. "We saved the Muggleborns. It wasn't all in vain."

Wise words came to me, as if I was inspired by my slow death. "Yes," I rasped, "but my personal battle... it was in vain. We both died. There was never meant to be a winner between the two of us, was there? What did we ever do but stumble around and destroy things? Whatever did we do?"

"You are the hero of this story," continued Neville. "We will always remember you." A murmur of agreement rose from behind him.

I couldn't help but let out a chuckle. "Harry Potter, Savior of the Magical World. The Boy-Who-Died."

"No. The Man-Who-Won."

"I hardly won. I got him. He got me. How poetically dual," I laughed.

He had no time to respond to my statement, because the world dissolved into a deep magenta, and I spun around as if in a Portkey. Ice replaced the scorching heat from before. Around and around I went, until I was unceremoniously deposited on a stone floor. I regained control of my motor functions, and managed to get out a pitiful "But magenta's not a color" - courtesy of second-year Hermione, before my vision turned a solid black.

~~Fractured Realities~~

"He looks like James, doesn't he?"

"A little. But those green eyes..."

"Could he be?..."

I drifted back into unconsciousness.

~~Fractured Realities~~

I woke again to Dumbledore's kindly blue eyes. I gasped. "Professor Dumbledore... am I - am I dead?"

"I am indeed Albus Dumbledore. And you are?" the old man asked, smiling.

"You don't - you don't know me?" I stuttered out, my lungs still feeling the after effects of my ride.

"I'm afraid I do not," the man confirmed. People swam in and out of focus on the periphery of my vision as I attempted to gain my bearings.

"I - I'm Harry Potter." Gasps echoed around the room, which, I groggily noted, was very similar to the Great Hall. I managed to rise from the ground.

"Indeed." Dumbledore closed his eyes, sighing. "Harry, we need your help to fight a great evil that has ravaged this world."

"This world?" I asked.

"We seek your aid," he continued, "in hopes of defeating once and for all Tom Marvolo Riddle."

"Is this some sort of joke?"

"Just tell him!" exclaimed someone who I could not place in my disorientation.

He pressed his fingers together, looking incredibly weary. "Harry, to be blunt, you are in another reality. The fight against Voldemort has taken its toll on the best of our society. I wish it were not the case that I would ever have to ask this of you, but: will you help an old man right his wrongs?"

I gaped, imitating a fish. I had just begun to recover from the side-effects, of apparently magenta-colored dimensional travel. Then the old bastard drops this on me. "I just defeated my own Voldemort, right before you summoned me. Away from my friends."

Dumbledore's face was grave. "We need to be able to strike at the root of evil, to counter Tom's knowledge of vile magics and power with our own information. During ten long years of folly I believed I could go it alone without a child of prophecy. The information you possess is the last bastion of defense for our cause, and we require your assistance. Only then, I believe, can we stop the inevitable victory of the dark. If he is unchecked, I fear Tom may consume the entire world in his fury."

"First, answer my question: How is dimension travel even possible?"

"We found a ritual tome in a tomb in Egypt which gave us a ritual to summon a hero to our dimension with the skills to help us defeat Voldemort," spoke up a man in the back of the room.

I looked at the speaker and my breath caught in my throat. There stood a couple, one a handsome man with messy black hair and the other a woman with long red hair and emerald green eyes. Lily and James Potter.

"Please, Harry," James' voice caught for a second, "we need your help."

They summoned me from my dimension where I was perfectly happy and had just begun to sort out my life's problems, like Voldemort. But no, this just had to happen. Yet, I couldn't deny my alternate-dimensional parents' pleas. Having never really known my actual parents, I didn't want to screw up any potential relationship with them, if I was going to be stuck here. "Okay," I agreed, "but then you'll send me back, after you have the information."

The whispers in the hall among other Order members who I recognized - many of them were dead in my own reality - ceased. "Harry," started Dumbledore, "we may well need your help to fight Tom himself. When he has truly departed from the mortal world - then, we can make arrangements to send you back."

"Why can't I just tell you all I know? Why not send me back after that?"

"Very well," he gestured. "Tell us what we need to know."

"Okay," I decided. After all, this was a world in need. As angry as I was, I certainly wouldn't be Harry Potter if I didn't feel the need to help them. "I'll do it. But the moment I finish the tale of me and the snake-faced bastard, you're sending me straight back home. Preferably to a time right after you summoned me. You can do this, right? You can point to a ritual in your tome, right now, that'll return me to my reality."

Dumbledore removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes, then looked down.

"What?" I asked. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Sometimes, Harry, there are questions that should not be answered, just as there are fields of magic too dangerous to delve into and fates that are much worse than death. It is better, sometimes, to choose not to shoulder all the responsibility you believe you deserve, lest it prove too much. Perhaps it would be better to focus on the task at hand and defeat the greater foe before focusing on minutiae."

"Tell me," I demanded. "Tell me, damn it!"

He looked around, gauging the room before replying. "Harry, we don't have a way to send you back. You'll stay a resident of this dimension, provided nobody else summons you from here."

"WHAT?" I burst out, unable to take the revelation. The air around me crackled, my accidental magic reactivating after long years of disuse. I attempted to calm myself before speaking again. "You summoned me here, knowing that you couldn't send me back, knowing you were irrevocably tearing me from a life that with all probability I enjoyed?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Harry, the entire fate of our world is at stake - please, if you have mercy, help us. Then, when it is all over, we can revisit this conversation. Perhaps in the months ahead you will find new meaning within this reality, and form deeper bonds with the people here. Rashly destroying all hope of reconciliation is unwise, Harry. Lashing out at us will not bring you any closer to your original dimension."

"Can't you reverse the ritual or something?" I angrily demanded. "Well? Figure something out!" I barked.

"If we were to reverse the ritual, Harry, then the most likely outcome would be that magic would attempt to banish you towards several highly similar dimensions. There is simply no way to precisely specify your original dimension among the many, perhaps infinite, possibilities. You would be torn into metaphysical pieces, a fate likely worse than death. I know you are angry, Harry, but help us, for the good of our world."

"Is that how you justify your actions? That they're for some arbitrary notion of the 'Greater Good?'" At this point, I was more than a little pissed. I planned to help them anyways, sure, but I wanted to vent my anger somewhere before I began to do so. Dumbledore was a convenient target, especially since my dimension's Dumbledore made so many mistakes. Too many mistakes. He didn't live up to my ideal of him as the perfect man, and I hated him for it. Well, it wasn't exactly full-blown hate, but I never managed to reconcile my old image of a wise and fully benevolent old wizard with the actual human being he was. Nor did I get to converse with his portrait and put old demons to rest, because yet another Dumbledore decided that I could solve his problems.

Dumbledore grew stern. "Comparing me to Grindelwald will not gain you anything, Harry."

"But you were friends with him, weren't you?" He screws with me, I screw with him. People in the background gasped.

He paused for a fraction of a second. Then he looked incredibly tired, as he admitted, "I was. In the folly of my childhood, I was acquainted with him - became friends with him."

"And yet you use those very same ideals you cultivated as a child with him to justify bringing me here. What would Ariana say?" I continued to accuse.

Again a pause, before he sadly responded, "Ariana's death was an accident, Harry. Bringing up the demons of my past will not help this situation."

My eyes narrowed. "The Dumbledore I knew would've felt regret, rather than brushing it off, I think. I never actually got the chance to ask him. And the Dumbledore and Order of the Phoenix I knew would never ruin a man's life like you did mine."

"These are desperate times, Harry. And I implore you -"

"So, I ask you," I continued, raising my voice to drown out his, as well as the rising mutters in the background, "who really are you, and what do you want from me?"

"Harry, we want you to help us win the war. Just tell us what we need to know, and we'll leave you alone."

"No." By now I was convinced that something suspicious was afoot. Dumbledore's unnatural pauses from earlier came to my mind as evidence of this fact. And while he pretended to be kind, I was starting to see through the mask. I curled my fingers around my wand, which was still in my pocket, and brought it up to his face. More gasps.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Albus Dumbledore?" I demanded.

As if on cue, everyone in the room collapsed like marionette dolls with cut strings and the doors to the Great Hall swung open. My wand went flying out of my hand. I swiveled around as a tall figure entered, shrouded in dark robes, and began to slowly clap.

"Bravo, Harry Potter. Bravo," came the cold, high voice. "Not many have seen through my illusion." Voldemort.

All of a sudden I felt exposed, realizing that during the last who knows how long I had actually been at the mercy of my enemy. "What do you want of me, Voldemort?"

He chuckled menacingly. "Please, Harry - can I call you Harry? - call me Tom. After all, we know each other better than the closest friends... and the most passionate lovers." I was eerily reminded of a resurrection ritual some ten years ago. I could almost feel the cold caress of the newly risen Dark Lord on my cheek. He smiled, as if he knew what I was thinking.

His first words also immediately put me on guard. This was definitely not the Voldemort I had faced and defeated. He would have despised being called Tom, his pathological hatred of all things Muggle clouding all rationality.

"All I want is to ask you some questions, out of professional interest, nothing more. Questions about your reality's timeline. It would have been much simpler had you not seen through the illusion, but this is of little consequence."

"I'll never tell you anything!"

He clicked his tongue. "Harry, Harry, every time I meet you, you're the same... Defiant. Yet, I always get the answers out of you by the end."

My blood ran cold. He had done this before, summoned different versions of me. And all of them had broken under his torture, or worse. That, of course, was assuming that he spoke the truth. "You're lying. You'll never break me!"

This time he laughed. "How foolishly naïve of you." Red flashed all around me, and the world once again turned black.

~~Fractured Realities~~

I again woke on the floor, this time naked. Looking around, I could tell that I was in a prison cell. Its dimensions were barely large enough to accommodate me, and I huddled on the floor, shivering.

Voldemort was trying to break me by depriving me of human contact, but it wouldn't work. I would not give in. There I stayed, for what must have been hours, before a voice rang out.

"I see you have gotten used to your new living space."

"I still won't tell you anything, Voldemort. You may torture me to the day I die, you may enter my mind as many times as you want, but you will not win."

"Reassure yourself in your delusions then, and take pride in being the savior of your own world, comforting yourself that you will die a martyr before telling me what I wish to know." He paused.

"Did you know, Harry, that you could not even save your own world?"

"Of course I saved my world. I defeated you."

"You destroyed that Dark Lord's Horcruxes, kudos to you." I stiffened. He knew that I knew about the Horcruxes...

"But you missed one, my friend, your famous scar." He laughed. "You do not believe me, Harry Potter? Why else would the Killing Curse leave a mark? If your mother blocked it with her love," he sneered, "then why would it leave a mark at all? Your Dumbledore lied to you, Harry. Your scar was a Horcrux, accidentally created by your version of me, his last anchor to reality. You were supposed to nobly sacrifice yourself, you were supposed to die. I will not lie to you, then you were supposed to resurrect. Dumbledore would give you his little speech about you being a good little brave martyr, and then would send you back to defeat me. If you had truly done all of this, Harry, your scar would have faded. Countless Harry Potters have shared the same story."

I grew horrified as I realized the truth in his words. My scar was special, wasn't it? And Dumbledore always skirted around the issue of the Prophecy, preferring not to discuss it with me. That was because he knew the truth, and did not want to burden me with it.

That must've been what the useless Golden Snitch he gave me was for. 'I open at the close,' it read. Before my death it should have opened to me, told me some truth that Dumbledore wanted me to know. I still had it on me when I took an unplanned trip through realities.

"You are a fool, Harry Potter," he hissed, "a fool who has condemned his friends to death. Your situation is hopeless, and eventually, you will give in."

"So that's your grand strategy? No torture, or anything, just repeatedly telling me how hopeless this all is? No mental invasion, no fierce duel of wills?"

"There was a time when I was foolish enough to attempt Legilimency on a Harry Potter. It worked well for years until came a Harry Potter who withstood my mental onslaught. He surprised me and got the better of me, I will freely admit." Lord Voldemort, admitting his mistakes? No way. "But that is of no matter. I have learned from the mistakes of perhaps millions of other versions of me. And you shall submit to me, in time."

Voldemort had summoned millions of me, interrogated them for information, and then disposed of them? "You're just trying to scare me," I said, appearing more confident that I felt. I could feel the truth in his words. He had a commanding presence, even in voice, a presence that whispered to me that I was nothing and insignificant to his power.

"I assure you I am not, Harry Potter. How old do you think I am? A hundred years, a thousand years? No. I am millions of years old, I have learned indirectly from the best and worst Dark Lords ever to exist or be conceived of. I am immortal... unstoppable... patient. It may take time, but I can wait. I have had millennia of practice."

"If you've lived for millions of years, Tom," I wondered, "then why aren't you more powerful? You're scared of invading my mind, you had your lackeys stun me from behind in the Great Hall, you tried using Dumbledore and my parents' faces to trick me into revealing information," I continued, trying to goad him. "You're no stronger than any normal wizard."

This, finally, ticked him off. "I am superior to any common wizard. I am immortal, am I not? My answer to you, Harry, is that there are limits to magic, as unfortunate as it is, limits near which I lay. I see that conversation with you will not prove fruitful."

He left me to my thoughts, which already were taking a darker turn. If what he said is true, what hope did insignificant me have against him? What was my defiance but a petty struggle in the large scheme of things?

I drifted off into blissful sleep on the cold metal floor.