"Merlin's beard, Tom!" yelped memory-Slughorn. "Seven! Isn't it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case . . . bad enough to divide the soul . . . but to rip it into seven pieces . . ."
Slughorn looked at the young Riddle with a disturbed expression, perhaps starting to realize his true nature for the first time. Harry tried to meet Dumbledore's eyes, wondering what the old man thought of this, but the Headmaster appeared entirely focused on the memory playing out in front of them, seemingly refraining from blinking lest he missed something of importance.
If he was getting this right, didn't it mean Voldemort had split his soul seven times? Even contemplating it made him sick to his stomach . . .
And even leaving aside the unnatural act of ripping one's soul apart multiple times, this probably meant there were seven pieces of Voldemort's soul to somehow get rid of before he could even contemplate killing the man – or whatever he had become.
"This is all hypothetical, what we're discussing, isn't it? All academic," Slughorn was saying, though Harry could tell he was regretting the conversation very much. After reassuring the Potions Professor, memory-Riddle left, but not before Harry had glimpsed his face – it looked feral.
"Thank you, Harry," said Dumbledore quietly. "Let us go back now . . . "
Harry was all for the idea, really – they had a lot to discuss after this particular revelation, and Dumbledore must have some more information to add – but the universe didn't seem to agree. Instead of soaring weightlessly, or being automatically ejected like every other time, the opposite seemed to be happening – it felt like he was being dragged down by force, like someone had grabbed his legs and was refusing to let go. He looked down at once, and saw Slughorn's carpet, on which he'd been standing, had started to swirl and collapse around his feet, forming a vortex he was already knee-deep in.
"Profesor!" he shouted at the disappearing figure, "Professor –"
Dumbledore noticed his plight, and alarmedly tried to grab a hold of his outstretched arm, even while being in the process of being expelled by the memory.
"Harry, don't let go of my hand!" the Professor said urgently, gripping his own sweaty hand with his good arm, "Focus on your mind, and try to – "
But he never found out what he had to try, because Dumbledore was violently blown away like a leaf in the wind, and disappeared in the distance, presumably out of the pensieve.
Meanwhile, the scene around him – Slughorn alone in his office, eating candied pineapples with a perturbed expression – dissolved like the rain had washed it away, replaced by a thick white mist that didn't let Harry see anything further than his nose.
He tried yelling for help, and tried focusing on his mind – whatever that meant – but with every pasing moment he was getting dragged deeper. Before he knew it, he was submerged to his waist, and thought he glimpsed an endless expanse of sand through the mist . . .
He heard Dumbledore yell "Harry!" from somewhere far, far away before the world turned black and he had the dinstinct feeling of falling down from a great height.
And then he did fall, with the sickening crack of broken bones, on what felt like metal spikes.
He made a squeaky sound like a dying seal, but in his defense his back hurt really badly and he couldn't feel his left arm.
"Why, hello there," a calm, if slightly confused voice intoned from beside him, "And who might you be?"
Harry jumped, or at least tried. Big mistake. He almost screamed with the pain.
But that voice . . . he cautiously turned his head to the side and realized a number of things simultaneously. For one, it wasn't spikes he'd fallen on, but Dumbledore's desk, which was more or less the same thing given the many metallic and pointy instruments that populated his worktable. Secondly, that was indeed Dumbledore who was staring at him perplexedly, but not any Dumbledore. Oh no. It was an auburn-haired Dumbledore, with marginally less lines on his face and an even bolder – if possible – taste in fashion. His arms were also both perfectly fine. In fact, he resembled very much the one he'd seen in the other memories he'd been shown. The one from fifty years ago.
Harry opened his mouth, to answer the question or to splutter he didn't know.
What came out was a feeble, "Merlin's saggy ballsack," before he passed right out.
"Are you awake, lad?" a brisk female voice asked as soon as Harry opened his eyes. He didn't need to ask where he was, the white ceiling all too familiar after years of waking up to it. He was in the infirmary. That was nice. It meant it had all been a bizarre dream – Voldemort hadn't created seven horcruxes after all and he hadn't been sucked into a memory vortex-thing, and –
And that wasn't Madame Pomphrey. And Dumbledore, who was standing next to his bed, was still red-headed and perplexed.
Blast.
"Am I?" he answered wryly, "No, I don't think I am,"
The unknown nurse – blonde, with an unfortunate nose – started to fuss around his head with her wand, muttering to herself.
"I fixed his back, but his arm needs rest and a bone-mending potion every day for two weeks," she said, presumably talking to Dumbledore, "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with his head,"
"Nothing? Are you sure?" Harry croaked, "Maybe you should check again,"
The nurse sent an unimpressed look his way, but repeated her spells and confirmed, "Your head is perfectly fine,"
Dumbledore nodded and said, "Thank you, Madame Spleen. I'd like to exchange a few words with our guest, if it's all the same to you?"
Madame Spleen nodded and left them alone in awkward silence, at least for Harry. Dumbledore seemed impervious to such pesky things as awkwardness, even as a slightly younger old man.
"Professor Dumbledore," Harry said hopefully, "I don't suppose you know who I am?"
It was unlikely by a long shot, but who knew? Maybe the headmaster had simply dyed his hair and the situation had nothing to do with him, for once.
. . . Yeah, right.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I've ever seen you before. And I make a point of knowing the names and faces of everyone in the castle," the headmaster said pointedly, "I also make a point of checking the anti-apparition wards every month . . . would you mind explaining who you are and how you got in my office?"
"I'm Harry, and . . . I'm not sure what happened, Professor," he said honestly, trying to sit up without jostling his arm, "I was in your office, watching a memory in the pensieve, and then bam – I was sucked into this vortex thing and fell on your desk,"
Dumbledore blinked at him a few times and started to say, "In . . . my office? With me?" but then something seemed to occur to him and he asked cautiously, "If I may ask, what memory were you watching?"
"My potions professor's memory from 1943," he replied honestly. No point in lying – maybe he was still dreaming, but if he wasn't Dumbledore was sure to be the only person who could help him out of this pickle.
The professor stilled, and stared at him at length with those eerily penetreting eyes of his. Finally, as if accepting that he was telling the truth, he said quietly, "Today . . . is 1 September 1942,"
Harry's eyes widened and he repressed the knee-jerk reaction of yelling 'Lies!' and shutting his ears. But it did seem extremely unlikely . . .
Dumbledore, seemingly reading his mind, twirled his wand murmuring "Tempus," and sure enough, the numbers wobbling two-dimensionally in the air confirmed what the professor had said.
Minutes and minutes of silent, dumb-struck denial ticked by, until Dumbledore cleared his throat and assumed a very grave air.
"I can't help but notice that you seem to know me personally, Harry, and if you were watching a memory in my office, a memory that has yet to happen . . . I'd have to deduce that you travelled here from the future, however unlikely that sounds,"
Despite Madame Spleen's reassurances, Harry's head felt like someone had used it as a gong and it was still ringing.
"But sir . . . ! How's that even possible? I wasn't doing anything related to time at all – I was watching a memory, taken from Professor Slughorn's head! If anything I should have ended up in his head!"
Dumbledore, still looking remarkably calm, replied, "Magic cannot be taken lightly, Harry, especially when interacting with the mind. It is entirely possible that your Professor's memories acted as a gateway between the present and the past – or for us, the future and the present,"
Trust Dumbledore to start theorizing in three seconds flat. "A gateway?" he repeated somewhat dazedly, "But you were with me sir! Why was it only me who ended up here?"
"Such things cannot be divined without proper study, my boy. Time, mind and magic are the most enigmatic and incomprehensible things in existence, and you seem to have run afoul of all three at the same time,"
After that they fell into helpless silence, Harry trying to come to terms with it all, and Dumbledore looking like he was terribly curious about something but at the same time dreading to hear about it.
"Aren't you going to ask why we were watching Slughorn's memory of 1942 together, sir?"
Dumbledore looked guilty for a moment, then said firmly, "Such matters are best handled by the people most qualified to – I'll contact the Department of Mysteries at once, Harry, so you must refrain from revealing anything until then,"
"The Department – ? But . . . I need help," he said with a truly pathetic amount of desperation, "I need your help. I'm sure – if you just hear me out for a moment, I'm sure –"
The professor raised a hand to stop him, and said sadly, "I'm sorry, Harry,"
Harry tried not to feel crestfallen, and failed. Even knowing that this Dumbledore didn't know him, the cold rejection stung.
Dumbledore stepped away from Harry's bed and headed for the door, "Wait here, I'll firecall Unspeakable Croaker, he should be here shortly," he said, then he paused and turned around, looking more vulnerable than Harry had ever seen him, "You mustn't tell me anything, Harry. I proved it, time and again – I cannot be trusted with this kind of power,"
Then he disappeared in the corridor, and Harry gave a half-hysterical snort.
"And you think I can?!"
Waiting with nothing to do, Harry tried napping a bit, hoping to Merlin and Morgana and every deity he knew that he'd wake up and find out he'd dreamed the whole thing. And yet, when he woke from his feather-light fitful sleep, his broken arm was there to remind him that no, everything was real. He was in the past. In a past where he hadn't been born yet – hell, his parents hadn't been born yet – where nobody knew him. Where Ron and Hermione were nowhere to be seen and Dumbledore wasn't yet old and all-knowing.
After a while he tried to get up, but doing that without moving his back was sort of impossible, so he gave up. Dumbledore had said an Unspeakable would be coming. Surely, he would know how to send him back to his time – he did remember from last year's escapade to the Ministry, that the Department of Mysteries had a Time room, full of Time-turners and whatnot...
Just then, the door opened and a tall man with glasses and an odd moustache stepped in, his almost black eyes immediately finding Harry and staring unblikingly at him. Dumbledore lead the wizard to Harry's bed and said, "Harry, this is Unspeakable Croaker, he studies time, as it happens, and would be very interested to know the circumstance of your accident,"
Croaker opened a briefcase and handed him a folder, saying, "A pleasure, Harry. You understand this sort of thing doesn't happen every day, but enough that there is a procedure to follow – firstly, you must fill in that form – you may leave out things if you wish, but I must warn you that the paper is spelled to prevent untruths from being written upon it, so please refrain from lying,"
Harry didn't bother looking at the form and demanded, "You'll return me to my time, right? You have a Time room at the Department, so you must know how, right?"
Dumbledore stilled and Croaker looked at him sharply, his eyes lingering on his lightning bolt scar, and he said softly, "Now how would you know that, Harry?"
But he didn't want an answer, Harry could tell. He would have thought an Unspeakable, and one who worked with time at that, would be especially interested to know everything he could grill out of Harry, but apparently Dumbledore's friends were as wise as him.
"No, I'm afraid we haven't the means necessary to do that just yet," Croaker answered to his earlier question, "But your accident may help us get closer sooner,"
Harry lowered his eyes to the form even as a weight plunged into his stomach – he'd never go back to his time, never see Hermione and Ron again. Or Ginny...
Or well, wizards lived long lives, so he'd probably live to see them be born and grow up, but they'd never be friends like they were now – had been – never share all those adventures...
His sight became blurry and he was mortified to discover that he was, in fact, crying.
Croaker and Dumbledore tactfully refrained from commenting, and he was able to calm down and pretend nothing was wrong without incident.
He filled out the form in a matter of minutes, detailing what had happened to the best of his capabilities, hoping against hope that it would help the Unspeakables send him back. He wrote only his first name, not quite trusting the document with his full, famous name. Then he described the vortex of sand and the swirling white mists, and the sensation of falling down that had resulted in a literal fall on Dumbledore's desk. The form asked for a description of his background, which he refused to share as his background was not only distinctive and rather unique, but also something he preferred to keep to himself. The rest was normal enough – blood status, would-be date in his timeline, school he'd been attending and so on.
When he was done, Croaker skimmed it interestedly and asked clarification on some points, ("what color was the sand?", "How far did they extend?", "Was there a sun?" and so on) then stuffed the form in his briefcase and pulled out a roll of parchment marked by an official-looking seal.
"Don't worry about the form – it will appear blank to anyone outside the Department," the Unspeakable tried to reassure him, "Now this, this is a contract of sorts, also part of the procedure for time travellers. It will stop you from spilling the beans on things like politics, wars, natural disasters, economy and so on,"
After his drop of blood had been spilled where indicated, Croaker looked him in the eye and said, "The contract is not perfect, as you may have guessed, but then nothing human-made is, is it? I would still advise you not to divulge too much, as our department will be keeping an eye on you,"
Harry nodded distractedly. This seemed all pretty inconsequential before the looming knowledge that he would not be getting back to his time, would not get to kiss Ginny or avenge his godfather, or even get to see Ron and Hermione get married like everyone knew they would. Would they miss him? Would someone else fullfill the prophecy in his place?
Irritatingly, a picture of the Dursleys celebrating his disappearance popped in his head.
"The contract will keep you from revealing anything of great impact, but you'll be able to talk about innocuous tidbits normally – which I'd be careful with, by the way," Croaker stressed, "We will try to keep an eye on you, of course, but you have more than that to worry about. I don't know if it's the universe, the forces of time or magic itself, but something always happens to people who are more loose-lipped than they should. Many time-travellers suffered a horrifying fate for their carelessness,"
"Horrifying? Like what?" Harry asked, fascinated and nauseaous all at once.
Croaker leaned forward, an intense look in his eyes, "A woman who told everyone who asked about the future under the guise of being a seer, one day became inexplicably and incurably insane. They had to strap her to a bed until the end of her days. Another example is the man who published everything he knew on the newspapers looking for fame and money, and ended up paranoid and unable to get out of his house. he killed himself soon after that,"
Satisfied that Harry was suitably disturbed, Croaker cocluded, "It might just have been that living in a time not meant for them messed them up, but . . . you'd do well to be careful, anyway,"
At Harry's coscentious nod, Croaker got up and extracted a contraption that Harry recognized after a few seconds as a camera. Bloody hell, did it look old. The unspeakable muttered some spells on it, swirling his wand in small circles, and said, "Now if you would, I'd need some photographs,"
After that, throroughly documenting his appearance from all angles in what Harry suspected would become moving pictures of his puzzled blinking, Croaker left.
Dumbledore, perhaps interpreting Harry's pale face, reassured him, "He's mentioned only the blatant cases. It's actually a lot more common than you would think, for someone to be misplaced sometime else, and the great majority of them manage to live a normal life just fine. No need to worry, Harry, I'm sure you will be alright,"
"I hope so," he muttered, but he was still spooked and jittery.
After a few minutes in which Harry contemplated the complete joke that was his life and Dumbledore looked out of the window, Madame Spleen made another appearance, this time with a tray of about ten different-sized, different-coloured potions hovering about her elbow.
Harry made a face, but the routine of being in the infirmary and being fed foul-tasting potions was actually calming in its extreme familiarity – he'd been at it since first year, after all, and this almost seemed just one more of those adventures that had seemed insurmountable when he was living them but had ended up mere memories over time.
Except this time there was no clear enemy to defeat or person to save, no clear course of action that lead him to his objective, that is going back home – which had been deemed impossible by both Albus Dumbledore and the head Unspeakable . . .
But there had to be a way, and goddammit, he was going to find it if it took him decades to do it. So what if those old geezers thought it was impossible? He was Harry Potter, his very existence and survival had hinged on impossibilities since he'd been one year old.
They thought travelling back to his time was impossible, but then he bet they would say the same about surviving the killing curse.