Who Says We're Meant to Be
Chapter One
No one knows where the timers came from, or why they work. Muggle scientists have been working for hundreds of years to discover what makes them tick—literally—without any significant success. Some say it's a gift, others that it's a curse. They imply that it takes away a person's chance to choose. But still, children both magical and muggle keep being born with the numbers counting down, and the consensus is that the timer shows the amount of time left before you meet your soulmate, face to face.
That should make things easy for everybody, but it really doesn't.
Watching your younger self crumble into so much dust was, quite frankly, disturbing as all fuck, and Harry was getting a better idea of why wizards went mad while messing around with time.
The kid, didn't seem to be too bothered by it, glassy-eyed and still mostly asleep he was reaching for the glasses on his rickety bedside table when his whole body just kind of, fell apart. Disintegrating into a fine layer of gold dust that Harry recognized as being the same kind of dust that filled time turners.
And that was morbid and a little ironic to realize, that modern time travel magic was possible because of the dusty remains of ancient time travellers.
The whole process was over in just under two minutes and Harry was quick to dig around in his old trunk until he came up with an empty crystal potions phial. With a judicious wave of his wand the dust was gathered up and directed into the phial. He didn't know what he would do with it, or if he'd ever need it but he figured that it would be good to keep it.
Just in case.
That done Harry sat heavily on the edge of his old bed at Number Four Privet Drive and scrubbed tiredly at his face and tried to plan his next few moves.
What he really wanted to do was sleep for a month, or more, time travelling really took it out of a person, but although he could pass his physical changes off to a well-deserved growth spurt for the people who hadn't seen him in three months, if the Dursleys saw him they would immediately know something hooky was up. He needed to leave before that happened.
Glancing at the count-down to September first calendar tacked up on the wall he could see that Hermione had timed things perfectly. He was due at the Weasleys' tomorrow evening and the Quidditch World Cup would take place the very next day.
So, gathering up his younger self's belongings and shrinking his trunk down to the size of a deck of cards, Harry grabbed a bit of parchment and rummaged in his desk drawer for something to write with, coming up with a Bic that had seen better years, and he scribbled a quick note to his aunt and uncle—in case they suffered an uncharacteristic crisis of conscience and were inclined to make a fuss about his disappearance—explaining that he'd decided not to inconvenience both them and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and had taken the bus to their house early that morning.
Which had the added benefit of being almost completely true—seeing as how it was the ass-crack of dawn, and Harry wasn't feeling up to apparating in his current state and was planning to summon the Knight Bus—if entirely misleading.
Creeping downstairs with the ease of long-practice and avoiding the creaking step Harry left the note on the kitchen counter and let himself out of the house.
The day was looking to be warm and dry, if slightly overcast, and Harry walked the few blocks over to Magnolia Crescent, enjoying the quiet of the neighbourhood and the good weather and the sudden rush of delayed triumph as he realized that he'd actually done it.
Well, they'd done it. As usual Hermione had ironed everything out for him, found the spell, tweaked the calculations, helped him make a basic plan for after he made the jump. And he was almost sure she would have been right here with him if things had been different.
As it was, he didn't begrudge her the choice. She wanted to forget, Harry could respect that, hell, if it weren't for the bloody prophecy he'd have chosen to forget too, and he hadn't lost his soulmate.
He put out his wand arm, stood back from the curb and waited for a moment before with a crack like a gunshot a huge and violently purple triple-decker bus appeared at the end of the road, swerved wildly for a moment and then came to a sudden stop in front of Harry.
A short witch with a bar through her eyebrow, a gem nestled under the curve of her lip, and far too much eye-makeup descended the stairs and began to speak in a rote monotone.
"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard, my name is Gertrude Gump and I will be your conductor for this morning. What is your destination today," she gave him a quick up down eye flick, "Sir?"
"The Burrow, please, Ottery St. Catchpole," Harry answered.
The witch acknowledged him with a grunt, and calculated his fare.
"Well hello there, Neville," said the driver, Ernie, giving him an exaggerated wink, "Not on the run from any Ministry types this time, eh?"
Harry smiled a bit, "No, nothing quite that exciting, just visiting a friend. We're meant to be going to the World Cup tomorrow."
"Is that right?" asked Ernie, "Good on you, lad. Stan's been there all week with his brothers, unlucky sod had to beg on his knees in front of the whole station for Gert here to take his shifts."
"He enjoyed it," said Gert, unconcernedly handing over Harry's receipt, "That will be fourteen sickles, for the trip, for sixteen sickles you can also enjoy a hot beverage and for twenty five you can partake in our full-course breakfast."
Harry dug out enough silver for the trip and ordered a black coffee and dropped a few coins in the tip jar in order to discourage the lack-lustre Gert from spitting in it.
The bus lurched into motion avoiding animate and inanimate obstacles alike by the skin of its teeth and leaving Harry's jeans and shirt spotted with coffee. Ernie insisted on having him sit on the bench directly behind him and talked his ear off about his co-workers at the bus station, occasionally garnering a snarky comment from Gert, who was busily picking the chipped purple paint off her chewed-short nails.
There were a few more stops that morning then there had been the night almost exactly a year before when he'd been fleeing the law, and the sun was fully risen and it was almost a decent hour for breakfast when Ernie finally threw the break and stopped for Ottery St. Catchpole.
Slightly more caffeinated, Harry spent a few minutes letting Ernie call him Neville and wink at him tellingly and watching Gert become progressively more annoyed before the Knight Bus finally sped away with another horrifically loud crack.
The Burrow was, well, it was exactly as Harry remembered it, quaint and somewhat ramshackle and practically glowing in the forgiving light of the early morning sun. The tall field-grass swaying in the breeze, unburnt, and the chickens were still pecking about in the yard, and Mr. Weasley's shed and the broom shed had both been recently re-painted, and the house still standing—although on something of an alarming sagging tilt, the latest additions plainly held up more by a feat of magic than engineering—there were four sets of galoshes in varying sizes and colours on the front stoop, and Harry even spotted Crookshanks chasing a cackling gnome across the yard.
The ginger half-kneazle actually stopped his relentless pursuit, and turned to survey Harry, his bottlebrush tail lashing.
Abruptly Harry remembered that Crookshanks had known that the rat Scabbers wasn't what he seemed from day one. Hermione's cat was just as sharp as Hermione herself and about ten-times more perceptive. Harry wasn't sure if he would make the distinction between not-Harry and not-the-same-Harry, but if he did—well it would raise questions.
And while he'd always planned on telling Ron and Hermione at least, what he'd done, he did not—could not—afford to have them questioning whether his story was true, or if he was actually Harry and not some death eater in disguise. He would have enough trouble keeping this whole thing from Dumbledore and his compulsive string-pulling without well-meaning sabotage to counteract.
Settling into and easy crouch, trying to make himself look smaller and less threatening, he waited to see what the cat would do.
Crookshanks regarded him with an unblinking stare for long enough that Harry felt the burn in his thighs and started to actually sweat a bit.
Then he sauntered forward and wound himself around Harry's legs, purring like a rusty lawnmower and butting his head against Harry's hands demandingly.
The penalty for Crookshanks' silence ended up being a half-hour of petting and belly scrubs and following the cat around on his hands and knees as he moved just out of arm's reach each time he flopped down for more attention.
By the time he was dismissed from service he had acquired aches in muscles he didn't even know existed and his two-day jeans were completely unsalvageable.
Between the jeans, the hair (his and the cat's) and the exhaustion he probably looked like a bum. Actually no, he definitely looked like a bum. He sighed and tried to beat the worst of the dust off his pants and just barely remembered to unshrink his trunk before going around to the kitchen door and hoping that Mrs. Weasley wouldn't put up too big a fuss, both at his early escape from the Dursleys and his grimy appearance.
He took a deep breath to steady himself and rapped on the door with the backs of two knuckles for politeness' sake before leaning around the door frame and calling out.
"Mrs. Weasley, it's Harry—"
"Sweet Circe," came a sudden laugh.
Mrs. Weasley wasn't bustling around her tiny kitchen, although there was breakfast mostly cooking itself at the stove sending delicious smells wafting through the air and making Harry's distressingly empty stomach rumble.
Sitting at the scrubbed wooden table were the two eldest of the Weasley brood, Charlie was nursing a mug of something hot and rubbing salve onto the shiny burn that covered most of his bicep, and grinning shamelessly at a rumpled and dumbstruck Bill who's eyes flicked very fast from his wrist to Harry and back.
"Congratulations Billiam," Charlie added, slapping his brother on the shoulder vigorously, "I'll try and keep mum occupied for a few minutes, but you're not going to get long. Good to meet you Harry!" he added with a wave, "Try to go easy on him, alright?"
Harry frowned after Charlie for a long moment before turning back to Bill, arching a brow, "I feel like I've missed something."
Bill made a slightly choked off sound that might have originally meant to be a laugh, and tried to run a hand through his long hair, only to get his fingers snarled in the knots.
"Are you—I don't know—are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm just—processing," breathed Bill.
"Alright," drawled Harry, rocking back on his heels.
"Can't you feel it?" he demanded, a furrow appearing between his brows.
"Feel what?"
Harry was more than confused when Bill levered himself up from the table and crossed the kitchen in three long strides, snatching up Harry's left hand and unclasping his watch to bare his timer—his timer which was flashing all zeroes and burning slightly now that Harry was paying attention to it—and turned over his own arm to present his own zeroed wrist.
"Bloody hell," said Harry faintly, grabbing Bill's wrist and bringing it closer to his face without really thinking about it, "That is—bloody hell."
"Yeah," said Bill roughly, laughing a bit, "Yeah, that about covers it. So, hi Harry, nice to meet you, I'm Bill Weasley, your ruddy soulmate."
AN: Done for The Soulmate Competition II on HPFC.
Okay so I know that's a lot of different things happening all at once, but hopefully it's not too confusing for you guys. I've been wanting to write a soulmate au forever now as well as a Time-Travelling Harry/Bill circa year 4 and voila! This is the result.
Let me know what you guys think so far, it's been a bit since I started something new so I'm feeling a bit rusty so suggestions, comments and criticisms are very much welcome :)
Til next time
-Gen