The date is 31 July 2027, and Harry is turning 47. Life has settled in the past few years, perhaps too much for his tastes. But what plots lurk in the shadows of Harry's life, waiting to stir things up again? Beware the ancient, hidden secrets of unknown potential, for even the knowledgeable must take great care when handling them…

A/N: This is my new idea which has been bugging me enough to merit a story. The summary is above, for those who thought the title was more interesting than the summary, but changed their mind in the last five seconds. Anyway, I don't own rights, nor do I earn money, and I hope you enjoy my creation. Cheers!

Harry Potter was quite preoccupied. He had few things consciously on his mind, but he managed to be preoccupied anyway. As he walked slowly from his house to the edge of its wards, perhaps 30 meters away, he managed to cover three different topics, none of any real significance. He didn't even have new thoughts on any of these topics, he simply thought of them out of habit, and a small amount of annoyance.

Why are these wards so necessary? His train of thought began. I wish I could apparate and disapparate from inside my own home, like normal people. And he was off. From there it slowly got worse. I wish I wasn't so famous. That's the real problem here. I have a hard enough time living a normal life outside of my home that the only way I can have one inside my home is to hide. To hide from everyone, save close friends and family. Here his thoughts took a slight upturn, although that upturn was tainted by years of irritation. At least my birthday party won't be in some warded off, hidden area. This party will be at a proper house, that doesn't need those things. But I really do wish I could live like that all the time. That would be the most ideal.

At this point, Harry was nearly to the wards, and became preoccupied with thoughts of his destination. Apparation required concentration, after all, and he found that focusing for a few seconds before the final act of turning on his heel and disappearing helped, even if it wasn't necessary anymore. What Harry didn't know about, however, were the people just beyond his wards, waiting for him. They were hidden in ways most could never hope to understand, and many of the rest never would anyway. You couldn't blame him for missing them.

And yet.

Harry wasn't caught completely unawares. He rarely was, although he had only the vaguest of notions why. All he knew was that he could feel danger, in the most intangible and indescribable way, a split second before he was actually in danger. Combine this with the reflexes of an auror of many years, and one was hard-pressed to fully catch him off guard. This time, however, his instinct didn't serve him very well. He was focused on something other than guarding himself, and when his concentration shattered, all hell broke loose.

As soon as he crossed the ward line, he ducked. He barely gave the motion a second thought, and gave only slightly more thought to the motion of drawing his wand and tucking into a ball as he rolled suddenly to the left. These actions had saved him enough times that he trusted them, and performed them automatically. He was quite disoriented internally, however. His focus had gone from the Burrow, a place of safety and ideals he wished after, to a combat maneuver in no time flat. As he completed the roll, still mostly on autopilot, he put up a shield after sending off three random stunners. His roll hadn't taken him near enough any cover that he could hide, and he still didn't even know what he would be hiding from. Staying so still was a mistake. He could never have known it, and on such a timescale, human reactions fail at a fundamental level, but being still for the minutia of a second ended the battle. The experienced ambushers weren't expecting his dodge of their initial attack, nor his counterattack. But they had seen such actions before, and in the time it took for Harry to roll to the side, attack at random, and shield, a counterattack was launched by the most grizzled veteran of the group. Despite his shield, Harry dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Slowly, warily, the attackers gathered around the fallen man, not daring to drop their concealment spells. None knew how he had anticipated an attack, and all were wary of a fake-out, unlikely as it may have been. Then one of them broke the silence.

"He's out like a light. I know because my spell certainly hit him, and it never leaves a conscious victim, even if they were shielded," the one who had successfully taken Harry down stated with confidence.

"Are you sure you hit him?" asked another, "I was sure my first shot was on target as well, but that one very clearly missed!"

"Calm down, I know I hit him. See?" the first speaker dropped their concealment, carefully pointed their wand, and cast a spell that only his companions could have recognized. As a result, Harry's body rose like a marionette, swaying slightly after being lifted so suddenly. Harry showed no reaction. All of the ambushers knew that spell also caused a major burst of pain. Nothing real, just a sensation. And yet, Harry had shown no reaction, despite the impossibility of such a feat when conscious.

"Alright, point made, you can put him down now," said a third voice, this one female. As she spoke, she and the others slowly dropped their concealment spells, revealing five individuals, wearing nondescript robes, standing in a rough arc around Harry's unconscious body as it fell back to the ground.

"So…are we going to continue as planned? Nothing seems to have gone wrong," Another female speaker asked.

"First we have to move him, the spell that missed him could have triggered the wards as an attack, and we need to be careful," the first speaker said, "I'll need all of you to help with this."

The five of them all nodded, understanding perfectly. They had planned to move him, of course, even if the urgency of doing so had increased. Vaguely Greek chanting began to fill the air, as the ambushers moved to complete a circle. Each person pointed their wand at the person to their left, and a pentagon of yellow light began to form in the space between them. Once this happened, the chanting slowed, then stopped. The pentagon remained as the first man spoke once more.

"He's a celebrity, and although we don't know his private face, in public he seems indifferent to his fame. Knowing the stories of his youth, this attitude is understandable, and we should proceed accordingly."

Everyone present knew what he meant. This ritual, while convenient, relied heavily on the intent of all involved. They each figured how they would compensate their intent for Harry's unconscious will and personality.

As the ritual continued, the chant started up again, this time in a more familiar dialect of Latin. The members pointed their wands at the person next to the person on their left this time, forming a star shape. After this, each began to do something different. One waved his wand around, drawing shapes within the pentagon and star. Another pointed her wand into the air, slowly creating a web in the air, which Harry might have said looked like priori incantatem, had he been awake to see it. The web reinforced all of the glowing lines it touched, solidifying them. A third seemed to be casting a dedicated defensive barrier, reinforcing it as the ritual progressed. The fourth participant stood, ready. He appeared to be the backup, in case one of the others failed at the difficult task set before them.

The final ambusher, the grizzled one who had hit Harry with his spell, stood focused on one thing only; the subject of their ambush and who he was. The others took care of the rest, for the most part, even as in the back of his mind, he took some of their burden. But his conscious mind was focused on Harry. He built the whole of Harry's personality as he knew it, fitting the image of a celebrity into the plan for the ritual. Then, as the ritual reached a high point, he raised his arm. And pointed it directly at Harry.

At this point, everyone else stopped what they were doing. They weren't necessary anymore, unless their part of the ritual failed. The grizzled man spoke in a strange tone of voice, and his words were incomprehensible to everyone present. He spoke for precisely seven minutes about exactly what he knew, even though he himself couldn't understand his words.

And then everything shifted.

Where they were, few knew. Many more knew or guessed certain things about it. One certainty they all had was that the most difficult part was still ahead of them. Here, everyone was half conscious. Everyone but Harry.

That didn't make handling him any easier.

Immediately, things went wrong. They all felt a separation. On further investigation, the separation was important, related to their plan. But only the grizzled veteran knew exactly what it was.

He wasn't sure he could fix it.

Rapidly willing change, he broke all of the rules for travel in this place as they knew them. This plan had to succeed. But why…oh yes.

Failure. He had failed. Harry was gone. But who was…

They were deposited on a deserted island in the middle of the Caribbean. That wasn't where they wanted to be.

Harry slowly rose into consciousness. His breathing didn't change. His eyes didn't twitch behind their lids. He remembered being attacked, losing. That meant carefully waking up, attempting to hear what his general surroundings were, before bursting as much wandless magic as he could in every direction that even might have an enemy. Only then would he move. But he couldn't hear much. It sounded as though he was alone in a room. Wall piercing spells it was then, to be safe. He silently thanked his auror training for its torturous thoroughness. Then he burst out four 90º angle wall piercing spells designed to temporarily debilitate an enemy. He had 15 seconds. Jumping off the ground, unconsciously casting a lighting spell to fill the darkness, he waved his hand at the door, opening it. He rushed out; guard up to see…a street. The street was quite normal, by wizarding standards, if you ignored the cringing people in a 30 foot radius, and the others staring at them.

"What's going on here?" Harry demanded, confused beyond belief. He was certain he had been ambushed, captured, and that had been near his house.

"You tell me!" someone shouted back, outside the radius, "They all just folded over in pain!"

At this, the people began to collapse, gasping breaths of relief. That hadn't been 15 seconds. Harry must have been hit hard. Pushing that thought, aside, he went to the nearest collapsed person, pulling out his wand. HIS WAND! How did he still have his wand? Just what had happened after he was knocked unconscious? He stared, shocked.

He was pulled from his thoughts when the man who had shouted back at him walked up and asked, "Are you alright? Whatever it was, it seems to have worn off. And, if you're any indication, only affected the outdoors in a small radius."

Harry, still slightly stunned, replied, "Yeah…I'm fine." He then bent down to check on the person he stood next to, waving his wand in the familiar motions. Vitals, magic levels, all normal for having been hit by his debilitating hex, if perhaps a bit closer to a normal person's than usual.

"Well, nothing seems too out of the ordinary, other than some slightly scrambled magic and elevated respiratory activity," he reported.

"You can tell that?" the man asked.

"I had…basic healer training. I can't do much more than tell what's wrong and fix simple things. As is, rest is probably the best option; St. Mungo's would probably just say the same." Harry briefly considered telling the man about his auror training, but decided to keep erring on the side of caution, in case a very elaborate ruse was in effect. Unlikely, given that he had his wand, but not impossible. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! As Alastor always used to say. Even then, look how he ended up.

The man was checking the person's pulse by hand, asking how they felt, and getting a quiet response. "I can't tell as well as you, but it sounds like you're right," he said, "in my unprofessional opinion, I'll defer to your diagnosis."

"Yeah, I'll just check the others then," Harry said before doing just that. All of them had reduced effects from the hex, and none answered any questions unusually for someone unexpectedly attacked on the street. They seemed like normal people. So what was going on here?

After checking everyone over, Harry addressed them all as a group. "Right, so it would appear that whatever caused you temporary pain has done nothing more serious than slightly scramble your magic. You may not even have trouble casting spells, but taking it easy for the rest of the day is advised. Other than that, continue about your business, if you don't have any questions." He didn't expect any, having had a short conversation with each of the 12 people caught in his hex. And he was right. The man who had helped him investigate walked up though.

"Well, I don't believe I caught your name, I'm Franklin, Franklin Jennings. And you?"

Harry was caught off guard. "Uh…Perry, Perry Hotter," he said without thinking. Then he cringed. Hard. That was certainly the way he introduced himself most, never needing to introduce himself by his actual name, but that was his bedroom name. Ginny had made it up. While drunk!

The man stared. "So…you're muggle born too, I take it? That isn't a very…wizarding…name."

Harry thought very quickly. "No…it's German. H-a-u-t-e-r. And yes, a muggle name."

"I see," the man said, "that makes a bit of sense. More than I could make of it anyway."

"Yes, it's not exactly a…common name," Harry replied, "At any rate, what do you make of what happened here?"

"Frankly, I'm at a loss," Franklin replied, before flinching a bit, "no pun intended."

"What? Oh, yes. Your name. Well I don't know either. I've never heard of a spell that affects an area like that so specifically, or wears off so quickly. And who on Earth cast the damn thing?" Harry wondered aloud.

"Once again, I'm at a loss. I probably don't have as much experience as a trained healer, I work a desk job at the ministry."

"What department?" Harry asked, still attempting to trip someone up and get to the bottom of the mystery.

"Hmm? Oh, goblin liaison, I file and edit reports. Not many spells involved in that. No interesting ones, to be certain, not since the last war," Franklin said without hesitation.

Harry knew that such positions existed, even the aurors had report filers, although it was a rotational position unless someone was too injured to do anything else. Or unless someone was being punished. "Well, I don't know what to say. Maybe mention this at work, to the DMLE. They could investigate it," Harry suggested.

"Yeah, maybe. I suppose this is where we part, then, unless you'd like to come with."

Harry didn't think visiting the department he worked for in whatever version of reality this was would be a good idea until he knew more. "No, I have a pretty urgent engagement that I'm running up on, after dealing with this mess. Good luck!"

"Yeah, same to you," Franklin replied, before turning on the spot and disappearing.

That was odd. Ever since the war, the ministry had been protected from even employee apparation. Maybe he'd headed home, to floo in. Even that was more secure, but it was at least plausible. Why was everything so plausible? Ruses always had holes, if one looked hard enough, but this one didn't have any.

Except.

It hit Harry like a truck. The realization struck him so hard he nearly fell over.

No one knew who he was. Franklin had even asked for his name.

This had to be a ruse. No one on the street knew who the Boy Who Lived was.

After realizing this, Harry simply wandered for some time. He enjoyed the feeling of normality. He'd wished for it so many times, and though this may not have even been a real world, he enjoyed it as much as he could. After all, the next step was escape. That could wait, this particular ruse had no pressing matters to deal with.

After wandering aimlessly for a few blissful hours, Harry had also figured out where he was. Business had slowly taken over his mind, out of pure habit. He had noticed small incongruities that confirmed it wasn't the real place, but it was meant to be a small country wizarding section of a village he'd been to once before. He couldn't remember the name, but he remembered enough details of the areas he'd fought in to see the differences. No scars, for one. Most obvious things would have been fixed by magic anyway, but he remembered a sign that had been moved after being knocked down, when he stuck around for questioning and saw the repair wizards at work. He didn't know why, which had helped cement the detail in his mind. But now he was ready for the first test. Judging from the quality of the environment he was in, and the detailed personalities he'd encountered, it wouldn't work, but it was always a starting point. Picturing the woods just outside of his wards, he turned on his heel and vanished with a sharp crack!

Harry appeared in a wooded area. It even looked like what he had pictured. How interesting, he hadn't seen that before. Must be a very advanced illusion to include a feature like that. But there was one thing he knew for certain, and confirmed with a few steps in the right direction. The wards of his house weren't where they should be. They ordinarily hid everything out of the ordinary, namely his entire yard and house, from anyone on the outside, in addition to a few more actively defensive features. But after stepping within the bounds he knew were his wards, no yard appeared, no house.

Having confirmed his suspicions, and with his curiosity piqued by the new illusory effect he was seeing, Harry tried a different tactic. This time, he pictured Diagon Ally. As soon as he appeared, he quickly asked a passerby a question, noting that people could also be mimicked in this illusion with startling ease.

"'Scuse me, but have you got the time? I'm running a bit close and I forgot my watch," he started, hoping to get no response, to have exited the effective range of personalities in the illusory people. No luck, however. The stranger pulled out a watch and answered without hesitation.

"'Bout half past 10, you best hurry. Whatever meeting you got ain't likely to wait for you. Hah!" the man chuckled a bit as he walked away.

Harry was stumped. He had travelled a total of around 300 kilometers, all around Britain, unless he remembered the location of the village wrong. But his house was still a little less than 100 kilometers away from London, and Diagon Ally. That was a huge area for an illusion. Having to combat them from inside on occasion kept the auror department up to date on illusory techniques, and as far as they knew, the village he had begun in was about the limit of the amount of detail that could go into an illusion. The people alone should have taken up more power than an illusion could have. He'd talked to several as he wandered around, and everyone had responded like a normal person. He was willing to bet the same was true here, although he wasn't really up to checking. He halfheartedly greeted a few people, and even talked briefly with a shop owner, and all confirmed his suspicions. Harry wasn't sure what to think anymore.

Then, an idea struck him. It was several hundred kilometers away, highly detailed, and definitely impossible to mimic in an illusion. The wards alone were an impossibility, and even if that rule had been ignored like the others, no one knew as much as he did about the castle. Harry was going back to Hogwarts. He turned on his heel, picturing the front of the three broomsticks.

When he arrived, he didn't bother to check inside. He rushed off to Honeydukes, wondering why he hadn't just disapparated there. When he reached the shop, he cast a quick disillusionment spell on himself, before sneaking inside and entering the secret passage, being sure not to move anything in sight of other people or bump one of the customers. Once inside, he began the walk, casting ward detection spells as he went. Auror training covered enough ward breaking for him to get by. The passage was regular enough that he could find his way by their light without need of a lumos.

Suddenly, Harry stopped dead. His ward detection charms had hit something. Something that blared power. Harry was so surprised he nearly stopped breathing. But then he remembered how to analyze wards. Surely the wards of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry couldn't be mimicked exactly by anything. Surely they…

COULD?!

Harry began to panic. Nothing could mimic wards. He would know. No one was even close to developing that kind of magic. The department of mysteries may not say much, but they did say that, which meant, most assuredly, that no one was even close. When the department of mysteries stopped claiming that no one was close, it meant someone was distantly aware of a theoretical version that could take decades to develop. So HOW?

Casting a few more charms, Harry only grew more confused. Since the Battle of Hogwarts, the wards had been re-updated to a state similar to, though not quite as extreme as, his sixth year. These wards were different. He had never analyzed Hogwarts' wards in a different state than the post battle one he was so familiar with. And yet, if he had to guess, these wards were from a pre-battle state, before even his sixth year. The earliest they could be from was his fifth year! What magic could do THAT?

NO BLOODY MAGIC COULD DO THAT! Impossibilities piling onto each other, Harry began to doubt his hypothesis. But if not an illusion, then what? It had to be magic. These wards, the state of the outside world, even his bloody house, weren't replicated quite right. The only normal thing was the people. Even the people were more detailed than he could believe. That alone rang alarm bells, if normal ones. Detailed people were potentially possible. Not likely, but potentially possible. And yet, next to everything else, they were the most believable thing he'd found!

Eventually, Harry decided that the only course available to him was more investigation. What else could he do? Casting a few spells to protect his identity, some of them quite complex, he prepared to enter the wards. Whatever he found, it wouldn't do to project his identity. Being what the enemy expected was rarely a good idea. He even shifted the bone structure of his face and tidied his hair. Spells were capable of tidying his hair, but he usually chose not to, in remembrance of his father.

After several minutes of spell work, Harry looked only vaguely like himself. His scar was charmed unnoticeable. His face was reshaped. His hair was neat and tidy, though in the curly side. His eyes, he left untouched. Even Ginny hadn't recognized him looking like this, until looking long and hard. No one but his wife, and perhaps his friends, who he would want to recognize him, would connect his current face to his normal one. He may not be Teddy, or Tonks, but he had passed auror training, and did know how to change his appearance.

Confident that even if forced to lower his disillusionment, he would be disguised, Harry stepped through the wards. No longer needing to search for the wards, he cast a lumos, and walked the rest of the passage, wondering, even dreading what he might find. So far, nothing had informed him about where he was, how he had gotten there, or indeed what properties the place he'd found himself in possessed. The most he knew was that comprehension eluded him more vigorously with every new find. Perhaps the castle itself would be different. He had no reason to believe it would, aside from optimism. Harry was running a tad low on optimism, by this point.

At last he reached the castle. Raising his wand to tap on the inside of the statue, he hesitated. He wasn't sure he wanted to continue. Hogwarts was no longer home, but it had been. And it still was a place of solace, of sanctuary. He had always found a way to return there, at least once a year. Hogwarts was a friend, and Harry wasn't sure he could take this friend being twisted like everything else in this illusion. Or whatever it was.

And yet.

Harry knew he needed to continue. He knew it was necessary. He was even still a bit curious, through all the caution his findings had placed on him. So he tapped the statue.

"Dissendum."

Here goes nothing.

And once again, Harry Potter entered Hogwarts. His first destination was obvious. The Room of Requirement was such complicated magic that no one knew how to cast the stuff anymore, let alone imitate it. And so he headed to the seventh floor, where the Room had settled back in after the Battle of Hogwarts. If this was even a post-battle Hogwarts. Harry didn't want to continue that line of reasoning, it was too disturbing. So he walked to the tapestry of the trolls, and walked back and forth three times, imagining a room where he could finally relax and stop puzzling the damned mysteries of this place.

And then, a door appeared. A very familiar door. This was the door to his bedroom.

Harry tapped the door with his hand.

Harry scanned the door with his wand.

Harry found that this door, almost beyond a shadow of a doubt, was the door to his bedroom. He very hesitantly opened the door, fearing what he would find inside. He looked.

He closed the door, curiosity sated. Then he sank to the ground, defeated. The Room of Requirement confirmed that the well and truly impossible was impossible. There was simply no way that could be true. If one put the facts together, the evidence didn't point to anything possible. Nothing but…well, even that was impossible. He had only heard of it in a muggle series on the telly. No wizard seriously believed in—

Harry felt a sharp pain in his side. He looked up, uncomprehending. Then he curled up and moaned. He had found something more impossible than all of the other things put together. Even the Room paled in comparison to the impossibility of this one.

Harry was looking up at the wizard who had tripped over his invisible, collapsed body.

Harry was looking up at Albus Dumbledore.

A/N: I know you hate me. I love you too. The chapter really couldn't end anywhere else, as far as I could see. No other point in the story has quite as much impact, although a few will come close. Anyway, what I'm curious about in the meantime is what the people think. I know what's going on. You have to guess. I'm not trying to rub it in. A new chapter explaining nearly everything will be up in a week. In the meantime, I hope for reviews. I have an…interesting way of incentivising them, I think. The story will go on regardless of reviews. But I want your theory of what's going on before you continue with it. Yes, you. I'm talking to the person reading these words, hoping for an explanation, trying to come up with one of your own. Before you continue, even if you get here after the next chapter, I want to know what you think has happened to Harry. That's all. Just type something believable in the review box, and then continue as you normally would. If the next chapter isn't out yet, I sincerely apologize.

Best of wishes,

feauxen.