Disclaimer: Mrs. Rowling owns; I just borrow.
Author's Note: I got this idea for a twist on the time-travel cliché since it's always like a 100 year old Harry Potter going back in time to his younger self and ultimately getting together with whoever the author pairs him with. Normally I don't have a problem with that. In fact, I love the time-travel genre since there are so many awesome possibilities although most of them are done to the death. So this plot-bunny came along since I was very disturbed to realise that most of the time only Harry goes back in time and not his love interest resulting in a 100 year old man lusting after an eleven or ten year old girl.
Most stories are cool since they feature a Powerful!Harry whether he's light or dark or even grey for that matter, but they are all so typical with so much angst, drama, and character-bashing that it makes me sick. Some stories are done well but now it's all just so over-rated and cliché, get my point? Basically, I decided to try something new. This is similar to time-travel but it's just Harry. You'll find out what happens in this first chapter and more to come, if you're lucky. This is mainly a plot-bunny one-shot though since all other ideas after this of Harry becoming ultra-powerful and whisking his love interest off her feet have already been done before on overkill. But enough said or I'll write more in the A/N then the story itself, so let the tale begin!
Chapter 1: A Real Friend
Nine-year-old Harry Potter tossed and turned uncomfortably in his cupboard under the stairs. The small space had become a morbid comfort to him, a sense that this darkness that surrounded him would never let him go. It would always be there for him no matter what happened or who failed him.
You see, Harry had made his first friend today at Primary School. He was a thin and gangly boy with curly brown hair that loved stories about some guy called Spider-Man. The wild tales he spun made no sense to Harry because how could a normal man produce a thread out of his arm strong enough to hold him as he swung on it? That left only one plausible reason: Magic.
Magic was the forbidden fruit so to speak amongst the Dursleys – Harry's aunt, uncle, and cousin – who hated the thing with a passion. It had all started when Dudley was going for a sleepover on Friday night and his aunt and uncle had a business seminar at the same time, so it was a win-win situation. The Dursleys were very cruel to him but finally relented to allow him to watch TV so long as he went to bed extra early and cleaned the entire house.
Harry eagerly agreed as he never got to watch the telly without getting beaten up by his wale of a cousin – Dudley Dursley – or yelled at by his aunt for being a rude layabout. How that made sense he did not know but what he knew was that this was his chance at freedom and he grasped onto it eagerly. So as soon as the Dursleys were gone, Harry quickly flipped through the channels to see if anything good was playing. Otherwise, he would clean the house first and try again later.
To his delight, The Sword in the Stone, a cartoon about Merlin and Arthur, was playing. Harry fell in love with the film since Wart's miserable life matched up a lot to his own. Then Merlin took him under his wing and started teaching him magic. Harry knew it was just a silly cartoon made up for kids, but something stirred within him making him wonder if magic was real and if he could do it. He shrugged off the feeling and watched as Merlin took Harry for another lesson while he enchanted the pans and pots to clean themselves.
Harry laughed uproariously as they did so, knowing that the mean Sir Kay and Sir Hector would be furious. Suddenly, an idea sprung to mind and Harry decided to give it a try. He didn't know if it would work or not but there was no harm in trying as he had to clean up the entire house anyways and while the Dursleys never showed it to the neighbours, his relatives lived like slobs. If Dudley could ever transform into an animal like on that cartoon – it would be a pig! Harry laughed at the mental image and hurried to the kitchen where a massive stack of dirty dishes awaited him in the sink.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and focused on magic and pictured himself as Merlin bewitching the pots and pans. Once again, something stirred within Harry and in his mind's eye he saw a vision of a white door opening into blackness releasing a flood of golden light. The affect was amazing and he felt a rush of warmth and peace wash over him as his magic awakened, pouring throughout his being. When Harry opened his eyes, he stared gobsmacked and astonished at the kitchen for everything looked like it was alive!
The pots and pans were animated exactly like in the cartoon and everything dirty was lining up to be cleaned. Harry could even feel his shirt tugging at him to get pulled off and dumped in the sink and he laughed as he protested, jumping about in glee while suds and soap bubbles danced in the air. His glasses bobbed on the bridge of his nose as he watched in awe while the sponges wet themselves, dipped in soap, and started cleaning dishes under the sink. It was organised confusion as the brooms and dustpans and mops joined in, adding to the clean up job.
Poor Harry was too caught up in the sheer joy at the thought of actually doing magic that he failed to hear the car skid to a halt on the driveway. He also failed to notice the door unlock and burst open as his aunt and uncle and cousin stormed in, disgruntled due to heavy traffic on the roads preventing them from going to their meeting and Dudley's sleepover. So you can only imagine their shock and horror when Aunt Petunia saw her worst fear coming to life right before her eyes – the freak was doing magic in her house!
It was chaos.
"BOY!" Uncle Vernon shouted, his face turning purple with rage and his vein bobbing in his neck.
Dudley shrieked in terror like a little girl and ran, more like waddled and tripped, up the stairs and to his room where he slammed the door and locked it not wanting to get cursed by that devilry. Aunt Petunia was so shocked and alarmed that she was frozen in fear. Uncle Vernon was more mad than afraid though and charged down the hallway, slipping on the wet kitchen floor and getting tangled up in mops and towels as the enchanted items struggled to clean the very dirty Dursley.
Harry couldn't stop himself and burst into laughing at the hilarious sight. He was only prevented from his uncle's wrath because his aunt snapped out of her reverie and stormed into the kitchen careful not to make the same mistake. Trying to ignore that 'evil' magic, she gave Harry a tongue-lashing as she hauled him away from the kitchen to his cupboard slapping him repeatedly. Dudley had finally come over his terror and watched in secret delight as his father got beaten up by brooms and mops. But then he got bored and padded over to the telly and quickly changed the channel to his favourite show on boxing.
So here Harry was, lying in his bed and trying to fall asleep as he went to bed without dinner, again, and he knew that he probably wouldn't get it for a long, long time. This hadn't been his first act of magic, he realised but it was his first purposeful one and that scared the living daylights out of his relatives when they would discover it. They were so frightened that they had gotten to discussing putting Harry up for adoption or even putting him behind bars, so much the safer.
But then Dudley mentioned that he might attack the poor prisoners with his awful magic and the other Dursleys quickly agreed that it would be wiser to kick him out and let him live in the streets. Still, Aunt Petunia recalled her promise to her deceased sister one that she was forced to uphold by that bastard Dumledore who dumped the freak on their doorstep. Aunt Petunia hated it, but she knew that they would gain the ire of the Wizarding World if they let Harry run wild and uncared for. So it was that they had reluctantly agreed to let Harry stay at Private Drive Number 4.
The young wizard in question was currently nursing his red cheeks where scratch marks from Aunt Petunia still resided. He was trying hard to fall asleep but the magic was still hot within him, and the image of his uncle getting thrashed remained vividly in his mind. Not having anything else to do, Harry closed his eyes and tried to picture that white door where his magic had come from again. At first, nothing happened. After a short while, he almost gave up. Finally, he saw a faint flicker of white and the door shimmered into being. Shouting for joy, Harry imagined himself opening it and was surprised to see not a burst of golden light but a white room!
The room was empty and spotless except for two comfortable-looking chairs opposite a tea table of some sort. Harry was even further surprised, if that was at all possible, to see an older man sitting in the chair opposite him. He wore a robe that looked very much like Merlin's except that it was black with a strange design in the shape of a small shield over his heart. A black belt was wrapped around his waist with a glittering, golden sword attached to it. The man had messy black hair just like him and even had his own green eyes which twinkled with mischief. As if reading his thoughts, the man parted his hair to reveal a scar shaped like a lightning-bolt etched onto his forehead.
"Are you me?" Harry asked in shock and wonder.
The man smiled warmly at Harry.
"You might say that," The man agreed, nodding his head as if thinking it over. "Rather, I am you but from the future. I am your older self."
"But how is that possible?" Harry asked sceptically.
His aunt and uncle were careful to stamp out all such theories that sometimes appeared on the telly and made sure that Harry didn't believe them. So this was very hard to believe.
"Magic," The supposedly-older Harry said simply with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Magic," Harry repeated, giving it a thought.
A couple hours ago, he wouldn't have believed in magic and he would have probably hated it if he did believe in it since his relatives hated it and made his life a living hell because of it. But if this was possible with magic, then it couldn't be a bad thing right? It's not like cleaning up the kitchen was really a bad thing, if you didn't count getting caught and in trouble that is.
"But if you are my future self," Harry said theoretically. "Then how can you exist since you are in my head."
The man grinned mischievously.
"You're dreaming, Harry," The man said. "Whether you believe it or not that door you just accessed is a type of void or dreamscape, whatever you want to call it."
Harry's shoulders sagged. "So none of this ever happened? I'm not a magician and I can't use magic?"
The man shook his head. "You are a wizard, Harry. A nice man called Hagrid is supposed to tell you all this but I thought to save him the trouble. We'll meet some people in two years time and we wouldn't want to disappoint them. It'll make life much easier, you see."
"How?" Harry asked.
"In two years," The man explained. "You will get taken to a school called Hogwarts which teaches wizards and witches how to do magic. You will face difficulties there, and I must prepare you for them."
"But if you are my future self and have already gone through all this," Harry said in confusion. "Then how can I still exist?"
"Time travel," Said the man. "Then again, this isn't quite time-travel but two people visiting each other from alternate realities. Somehow, I found out that our dreams overlap and after a while of watching your nightmares I couldn't stand it any longer. I want you to have a better life since I will die soon in my reality. If you can do this then you will live good and well. Your life with the Dursleys will be but a bad dream. Trust me, Harry. I know what I'm talking about."
"Can you even do magic?" Harry asked, wanting to be sure.
The man nodded sagely. "Very wise, Harry. Always question, or else you'll end up with the wrong answer."
So saying, he produced a yo-yo from his pocket and tossed it over to Harry who caught it clumsily. He had seen a few at school and his cousin had even got one for his birthday once, but Dudley got bored of it and threw it away. Harry fumbled with the string but got it to work eventually and bounced it up and down. Then, as the yo-yo bounced upwards the string flew from his hand and the yo-yo transformed into a beautiful, snowy-white owl. The owl cooed and swivelled her head as she fluttered down onto Harry's shoulder.
"Wow!" Harry gasped.
"Wow," The man agreed. "So do you believe me, now?"
"I guess," Said Harry. "What have I got to loose, right?"
"Good, lad," The older man chuckled. "But don't self yourself too short, as things will start to look up for you soon. In two years, your life will change drastically. Although I will teach you wandless magic, Hogwarts will teach you magic with a wand as that is the norm for most wizards and witches. Don't become too dependent on it though, as wandless magic is much easier and far more practical."
"Okay," Harry said eagerly, and hurried over to the chair that the man offered to him.
"Now listen carefully, Harry," The man said. "Because these two years are going to change the entire world!"
The End...
...For now!
A/N: Well there you have it! That was just one drabble I really wanted to write since after this would become real cliché and typical of the time travel genre, but if anyone wants to adopt this plot-bunny I'd love to read a story about this. You can take this idea and use it or write after chapter one. Basically, instead of Harry being an old man and travelling back in time – his future self visits him through dreams from nine years old and teaches him wandless magic, and normal magic.
It's so that he's real powerful when he goes to Hogwarts. He doesn't get anything like his cloak or vault key, but this would still give him a head start. Future Harry would also have to tell him most everything about his future life so that he doesn't make the most mistakes and they need to become friends. Future!Harry can guide him during Hogwarts but that's not necessary and any pairing is acceptable, but HarryXHermione is preferable. I might continue this but it's doubtful, so I would be delighted if someone would take up the torch.
And don't forget to review! :)