Chutes and Ladders: Part 1
A/N A smart person once told me that people shouldn't write authors notes because nobody cares about what you have to say. I am defying their logic because it made me depressed.
Preface.
He lay silently, listening to the whoosh as his breath passed between his slightly parted lips. His gazed was blurry and unfocused, vaguely aimed at the shelf above his small cot inside his cupboard. A spider tickled the small hairs on his leg as it walked down towards his foot.
Harry's mind was magnificently blank, only slightly aware of the mild stinging sensation on his cheek where a bruise was just starting to show. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, past the lightning shaped scar and down past his left eyebrow. The tiny droplet got stuck in his eyelashes and he blinked it away as his eye started to feel irritated. Bracing himself using his arms, Harry pushed himself up slightly and peaked through the little ventilation flap on the door. He listened intently.
When he had assured himself that his so called family were asleep, he let himself flop down on his back again.
When he was eight years old, Harry had not yet broken out of his inability to sit still and do nothing for long periods of time, a trait that was mandatory if one wished to live a peaceful life at the Dursleys'. So, to amuse himself and deal with his rather depressing boredom, he had tried to make an object move without touching it.
The Dursleys were very meticulous about never ever allowing Dudley or Harry to see any kind of telly program that had anything to do with magic. This did not have the desired effect though, as it only made Harry even more fascinated by such things when he saw them on the telly over at Mrs Figg's house. Harry, being a very open minded child, did not immediately see why such things should be impossible. Hadn't he himself been able to do things that could be considered abnormal?
There were several examples of instances where Harry had done extraordinary things. He had once, per example, found himself suddenly on a roof when he had been trying to escape Dudley and his gang and most bruises and cuts seemed to heal much faster for him than for other children. Thus, Harry did indeed believe that magic was real.
Now ten years old, Harry had mastered the art of dealing with boredom without getting scolded by his Aunt or Uncle. But he still loved the tingling feeling he experienced every time he did "magic tricks". At first, moving inanimate objects had been very difficult and his success was sporadic. But after two years of practising, he could do it easily.
And so today, as he lay in his cupboard convinced that his relatives were asleep and couldn't catch him in the act, Harry decided to play. He focused his gaze and a lonely sock and willed it to move. The familiar tingling sensation crept up his spine and tickled his nose as he felt it settle in his eyes. The instinct to blink was strong, but he ignored it as he focused even more intently the sock. Slowly, and with what seemed like great reluctance, the sock lifted of the floor and rose upwards. Harry felt the tingling sensation leave his eyes and creep down his right arm were it seemed to build up as if clogged. He recognized this as the signal that his fun was about to end. When the tingling feeling was completely gone from his eyes the sock fell to the ground.
Harry sighed and peered closely at his right arm. All the little hairs on it were raised as if he had rubbed them with a balloon as he had seen Dudley and his friends do on Dudley's eleventh birthday. His own eleventh birthday was in a week or two, but he doubted he would get to play with any balloons. Harry shook his arm to get rid of the tingling feeling and then snuggled in under his covers, falling to sleep.
Fate watched the boy. He was gifted, modest, kind and noble. It didn't matter what time line or what reality Fate looked to, Harry Potter was always the same. It was boring.
Life was not exciting without pandemonium. It was just dull.
Many think of Fate as an ancient man playing chess with human lives, seeing them as nothing but pawns. That is what he had been, at first. But after an eternity, one grows tired of chess. The game usually ends with everyone dead anyway. Chess is to bloody organized. How do you cause pandemonium within a game that has such strict rules? You can't. It isn't possible.
Thus, Fate had decided to play a new game: Chutes and Ladders. Fate turned away from the reality with the young sleeping boy and focused on another, a boring and old chess game. He picked up the pawns and moved them to his new playing board. With a simple roll of the die, Luna Lovegood stepped onto a chute and was flung back in time.
Fate smiled and redirected his focus onto other games, content with the fact that he had thoroughly messed up the natural flow of things.
The first summer.
The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive.
Most of the inhabitants were draped sleepily over comfortable chairs in well air-conditioned sitting rooms with classes of cold water or juice. This was however, not the case for a particularly lanky kid with a lightning shaped scar on his forehead. He was, at the moment, sleeping quite soundly inside a cupboard under a staircase; exhausted after a long gruelling afternoon spent weeding the garden in the blazing heat. His sleeping was, however, interrupted by the sound of a loud crack, as if someone had broken a bunch of twigs all at once or, in this case, the sound made by someone apparating.
A blond woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, with grey eyes had just appeared quite suddenly in his room. She had a slight confused aura surrounding her and her appearance was frazzled.
As Harry Potter gazed blearily into the glazed eyes of the mysterious woman he felt a slight pressure in his abdomen.
"Excuse me," he said, licking his dry lips. "I need to use the loo."
After he had answered nature's call, he returned and sat down on his bed. The woman was staring out into space.
"Er, hello" Harry said, feeling quite unsure of himself. "Not to be rude or anything, but who are you?"
There was a beat of silence, and then, "I am a figment of your imagination. You are going mad." The woman flapped her arms a bit and wiggled her ears.
Harry blinked.
"Sorry, I've always wanted to do that to someone. My name is Luna Lovegood." The woman said, the corners of her mouth twitching.
"So, I'm not going mad." Harry stated, although it came out a bit more like a question.
Luna stopped laughing and peered at the young boy in front of her curiously. "I don't think so. You shouldn't though. I've gone mad once or twice, it was very relaxing… but I need you to stay sane. I should imagine it would be very hard to defeat Voldermort if one thought one was a lemon."
"A lemon?" Harry asked. He was starting to feel very overwhelmed.
"Well, one would be mad to think one was a lemon, unless you actually are a lemon of course. But I'm not sure lemons go around thinking about the fact that they are lemons and a lemon certainly isn't going to try and defeat Voldemort. Then again, it would be more prudent to think one was a cucumber since they are always so cool and collected, or so the saying goes. Although, how do we know that cucumbers are always cool and collected? They could very well be as prone to panic attacks as every other vegetable."
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but then he just sighed and closed it again. Luna smiled. "How old are you now?"
Harry blinked. "I just turned eleven."
"Happy belated Birthday! So I suppose you've met Hagrid then?"
Harry nodded assuming that the woman- Luna… er something… Lovewood?- was a friend of Hagrid's . "What did you say about me defeating Voldemort?"
Luna's expression darkened. "Voldemort is the man who gave you that scar."
Harry touched his forehead lightly. "I know. You say his name."
Luna smiled benignly. "Fear of a name only increases fear of the object itself."
"Why are you here?" Harry asked, scratching his nose.
"Do you like stories Harry?" Luna asked. Harry frowned, whoever this Luna person was; she truly sucked at answering questions.
"Yes, I suppose. But how do you know my name? I never told you what it was."
Luna smiled. "I already know your name Harry James Potter. And the story I'm about to tell you is about you and your life." She sat down next to Harry in his bed throwing her arm around his thin shoulders. He stiffened, not used to forms of comfort, but Luna either did not notice or ignored it
"Once upon a time there was an orphan named Tom Riddle. Tom could do things other children couldn't. He could make people hurt if he wanted, and he could talk to snakes." Harry shifted nervously thinking of a certain boa constrictor. "People liked Tom, he had a natural charm that people were drawn to."
Luna turned her head and coughed before continuing her story.
"During the summer before Tom turned eleven a man visited him and told him about a school called Hogwarts. The man, Dumbledore, was a teacher there and wanted Tom to attend the school." Luna squeezed Harry's shoulders. "Anyway, Tom went to school and learned lots of things. He never gained any friends, but he had followers. He called them Death Eaters. He changed his name as well. Very few dare speak his new name." Luna smirked at Harry.
"Anyway, Tom killed lots of people, trying to gain power. There was a war. In the middle of this war, Tom learned about a prophecy concerning him and someone with the power to defeat him. Tom assumed it referred to you and so he went after your family. Your mother sacrificed her life for you and thus she provided you with a protection. Her love for you made it so that you couldn't be touched. Tom, who knows very little about love, did not stop to consider this before trying to blast you into little pieces and thus he was destroyed. You, Harry Potter, are also known as The-Boy-Who-Lived and you are the only known survivor of the killing curse."
Luna stopped talking, unsure of how much she should say. She was breathing heavily.
"This is not common knowledge Harry. People only know that you survived the curse, not why. Be careful about who you trust with this information."
"You seem to know a lot about this." Harry commented suspiciously.
Luna smiled widely. "I know because you told me, before I was rudely hurled back in time."
"Time travel?"
"In your reality, I am ten years old and slightly nutters if I remember correctly. In my reality, or well… in my former reality, I was twenty-one and you were twenty-two years old. You'd defeated Voldemort at the age of eighteen and it was like a huge weight had been lifted off your shoulders. But you were stubbornly hanging on to your guilt and you pushed people away. You were lost, Harry, but you would have figured it out eventually. You have always been strong. But apparently…" Luna huffed and glared upwards. "…Fate is an impatient fellow. Or maybe he was just bored. I don't know."
A chill crept up his spine and Harry, who felt like he had had his world turned upside down, simply nodded absentmindedly before fainting.
When Harry woke up Luna was still sitting on his bed. She beamed at him when she saw that his eyes were open. "You took that remarkably well. So well, in fact, that I am beginning to think that you don't believe me."
Harry scratched his nose. "I do believe you. I would know if you were lying." Luna looked surprised for a minute before frowning. "I didn't know you learnt how to do that this early."
Harry wasn't sure what she meant by that so he didn't comment. "Why did I feel guilty? Did people die because of me?"
Luna looked sad. "You aren't even eleven yet, so I wouldn't burden you with horrors from the future. That would be cruel. But I can assure you that you never hurt anyone innocent."
Harry furrowed his brow. "I'm not a baby!"
Luna smiled. "No Harry, even in your first year you showed courage that went beyond most adults. But at eleven you are not ready to shoulder what you could barely cope with at twenty-two. I will not be responsible for crushing your spirit."
Harry paled. "That bad?"
Luna nodded solemnly. "But never loose hope. Light can always be found even in the darkest of times."
"I'm not sure what I should do." Luna commented after a moments pause.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"Well, I don't know very much about time travel and I have no real plan of action. I can't really change anything because it could all go to hell if I messed up."
Harry felt a bit disgruntled. "So why did you come?"
"Well, technically I didn't mean to."
Harry looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or shout. He settled for neither for both would have been inappropriate.
"Harry," Luna said, her voice sounding serious. "Do you trust me?"
Harry shrugged. "I just met you."
"Well, the Harry I knew was an excellent judge of character. So judge me."
Harry seemed to think for a bit, and then he stared into Luna's eyes. She was startled by the astuteness she saw in his gaze, this was too much like the older Harry for her liking. It felt like he was looking into her very soul. Then he blinked, breaking eye contact.
"You have the potential to be very powerful Harry, power beyond your wildest dreams. But the amazing thing about you is that nothing, not even the lure of power, can sway your heart." Luna said this in a whisper and Harry had to concentrate in order to make out what she was saying. He blushed.
"You say that like you know me really well."
"I do… Or, well, I know the older you."
He seemed to think for a minute. "Yes, I trust you." Harry said. Luna beamed.
"Now I just have to figure out how to help you."
Harry frowned. "Help me with what?"
"Surviving." Luna said dreamily. Harry paled.
Aunt Petunia chose that moment to start pounding on his door, interrupting their conversation. "Get up!"
Harry sighed and Luna patted his back reassuringly.
"Harry before you go, look into my eyes again."
Harry did as he was told but was surprised to see that Luna's eyes were no longer the grey colour they had been earlier, but that they were now swirling orbs of silver. Harry felt himself get lost in the swirls and soon enough his expression turned vacant.
Luna smirked.
"I have hypnotized you Harry. You will believe that this conversation was a weird dream and it will not affect anything you do or say up until our next chat. In the mean time, I have stuff to figure out. When I snap my fingers you will wake from your slumber."
-ovo-
Harry had just returned to his cupboard under the stairs, teary-eyed and rubbing a red mark on his cheek that Uncle Vernon had given him after he dropped a mug of hot tea on Vernon's lap, when he saw Luna sitting on his bed. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again as he lost himself in Luna's silver swirls. "You will remember our last conversation." Luna said and snapped her fingers, her eyes returned to their regular grey.
Harry blinked and looked rather confused for a moment before a look of dawning comprehension graced his face. "Luna!"
"Yes. Now come, let me see what those awful muggles have done to you!" Luna cooed as she pulled Harry down into an awkward half hug, stroking his red cheek. Harry, who had not yet met Mrs. Weasley and therefore was not used to being mothered, blushed as Luna fussed over him. They talked about Harry's trip to Diagon Alley and he showed her his owl, Hedwig, who seemed to be quite taken with the young boy already.
"And your wand?" Luna asked.
Harry told her about how long it had taken him to find the perfect wand and about what Mr. Ollivander had said when he bought it.
"Don't let the fact that Voldemort has a similar wand discourage you Harry, phoenixes are wonderful creatures and you should be happy to have such a spectacular core."
The sat in silence for a while before Luna spoke again. "You are very skinny." She didn't say it accusingly, just as a statement.
Harry shifted uncomfortably. "I think I'll start bringing you food." Luna continued, ignoring Harry's discomfort "And maybe you could do push-ups… You don't have to do very many, maybe 50 a day? I think it would make you feel stronger, especially combined with the extra food."
Harry shrugged.
August passed quickly, with Luna bringing Harry food in the evenings and then talking to him before he went to sleep. Harry came to regard Luna as a close friend and as a mother figure as she often fussed over his health and tried her best to keep him happy and smiling. She amused him with stories of adventures to come and read through his textbooks with him telling him about the finer details of magic and teaching him useful charms and spells. He couldn't practise the spells, due to the Ministry and the law about under age magic, but she gave him a random stick and had him practise the wand movements.
Luna was happy to see that shortly before September 1st, Harry's ribs were no longer visible and that he had grown an inch. He carried himself with a bit more confidence than he had previously. Harry happily told her that he was starting to feel stronger and that he was now doing 60 push-ups every day.
On the last day of August, Luna sat Harry down to have a little chat.
"I have figured out how to help you." Luna started. "I can't interfere with the timeline, not yet at least. This means that you cannot remember me while at Hogwarts and I cannot be present during any important moments, at least not until your fifth year. So, I'll do what I can for you in the summers and then the last day of august every year I'll make you forget. I can make you stronger without mucking anything up, I think, and I can help you with schoolwork. But you wont remember anything I've taught you until after the school year."
Harry rubbed his forehead. "I don't want to forget you. And what do you mean about helping me with school after each year?"
"I'm sorry Harry, but I have to make you forget. I mean that I'll tutor you during the summers, going over everything you've learnt so far and adding to it. I'll be teaching you everything I know but then I'll have to take it all away before you arrive at school as to not inflict suspicion if someone were to notice how advanced you were. When I give you back all your memories at the end of your fifth year, you will be far more advanced then your classmates, hopefully you might even be as good as I am, only without much experience in actual duelling, unless I find a way around the underage magic law. Hmm…
Anyway, this will give you a better chance of surviving the war. I wont hypnotize away your memories, seeing as that would be very difficult and could, if something went wrong, leave you mentally retarded. Instead I'll use a modified version of a pensive."
Harry frowned. "And this is necessary?"
"Yes."
Harry watched as Luna brought forth a stone basin. She used her wand to draw silver strands from his temple and slowly, Harry felt all his memories of the summer fade away. He panicked a bit before becoming lost in the silvery swirls that were Luna's eyes.
And thus began Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts.
(A/N) Justification:
This story will not be amazingly well written. The grammar won't be perfect and neither will the spelling. The plot is weird and the humor will sometimes be childish. Why? Because I'm 15.