The Three Doors
Summary: At King's Cross at the end of book seven, Harry is given a choice - but not exactly the kind he was expecting. A different kind of "Harry chooses and goes back" story. Fem Harry. Slytherin Harry. Ravenclaw Harry. Hufflepuff Harry. Different Dursleys. Harry/Draco. Harry/Tom. Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort.
Prologue: Lily's Choice (Beginning Again)
Harry opened his eyes, and found he was not wearing his glasses anymore. He did not need them. He sat up and thought of clothes on his body, and he had them, a tee and jeans. Around him was nothing - a blank white space.
But slowly, it began filling with shapes and color. Harry slowly stood. Soon, a gleaming clean and totally empty King's Cross Station had formed around him. He heard a cry - and looked around.
A pathetic little form was lying underneath a nearby bench, a bloody little thing, unwanted and ignored, curled up and shut off from the world. Harry walked forward, wanting to help its pitiful cries. And then -
"Harry."
Harry stopped dead in place at the voice - and turned slowly around.
"Mum."
Lily Potter was standing there smiling warmly, hands crossed in front of her. She had her long red hair and her brilliant green eyes, and was wearing a big, warm blue and gold sweater filled with big cross stitches.
Harry swallowed down a lump in his throat. "I've always wanted to meet you in person. You - came to get me?"
"In a way. Walk with me, Harry," said Lily.
"But -" Harry looked back at the pitiful little crying, bloody form beneath the bench.
"Yes." Lily frowned, somber. "I will not tell you to look away, or stop caring. I don't think it would be healthy."
"That's - that's his soul," Harry realized. "Voldemort's."
"I always did love, Harry, your ability for compassion towards the people who treated you the worst," said Lily simply. "You should know - Remus and Tonks are dead. Fred Weasley is dead. Colin Creevey is dead. Lavender Brown is dead. As are scores of others."
The full weight of this hit Harry. He sat slowly down on another bench.
"Everything's a mess," he realized. "Voldemort's soul is in tatters, so many people have died who shouldn't have, I just died, and Voldemort must be winning."
But Lily was smiling. "I was hoping you'd see it that way - Harry."
Harry looked up in surprise.
Lily sat down on the bench beside him. "Here's how this works. You were given an image that would most symbolically represent what this place is to you. In your case, King's Cross Station, the place where you boarded to Hogwarts.
"Like with King's Cross, you have a choice. You could either take the train… on, so to speak. You could go back, and fight again. When Voldemort used a vial of your blood to revive himself, he connected his body to yours. You technically don't have to die unless he does. But he can die and you don't have to."
"I'm… sensing a third option here." Harry was frowning. "But what would it be?"
"I… managed to talk them into arranging a third option for you," Lily admitted. She stood and waved a hand. Three doors appeared floating before Harry. "You could go back a different way," she said. "Go back in time."
Harry stood quickly, eagerly. "I could go back to my old body?"
Lily winced. "Not… exactly. You see, there is no way of sending you back to your younger body with your memories of this timeline intact. Time doesn't work that way."
Harry frowned. "Then what use is it? The same things would just happen again."
But Lily smiled, her eyes gleaming, hard. "Not if you're put in a different life. You see, through each of these doors, Harry, you would lose your memories but become a girl instead. Grow up as a female. But even that's not enough to really change everything. I managed to talk them into giving each girl a different childhood-based point of divergence in the timeline. Each girl has a different life, starting from the early years."
Harry's head was swimming. "So my third choice… is to go back as a girl… and at some point in childhood, each girl's life becomes different from mine?"
"Exactly!" said Lily triumphantly.
"And I have to pick a door."
"Yes."
Harry pondered this. He couldn't imagine himself being a girl, but… "If the same things wouldn't have to happen again," he whispered to himself, eyes keen, mind spinning. He could go back to Sirius dying, or Dobby, or Cedric Diggory, even.
None of those things had to happen.
"I'll take the third option!" he said, looking up, determined. "So… what are my choices?"
"Besides your early years circumstances, there are only two things all girls have in common. They all look basically like me, and they all have the same phoenix feather wand core connecting them to Voldemort."
"Right. Makes sense - if I look like my Dad," said Harry thoughtfully.
"The farthest door to the left is a girl named Esmeralda. She has black hair and green eyes. She is a Slytherin." Harry's eyebrows rose. "Her wand is made of Silver Lime - a silvery wand for mysterious arts like Seers and Legilimency.
"In Esmeralda's childhood timeline, your Aunt Petunia has a luxurious bathing-house experience - it has Asian style influences, but it involves workers preparing luxurious baths with scents, bath bombs, dried flowers, candles, and face masks, that kind of a thing, for customers to relax and detox. Inspired, your aunt begins working there outside the home. Influenced by her coworkers, she becomes quite unlike the self you know - she starts wearing big vintage jackets, and she takes up writing.
"Your Uncle Vernon can't handle this -"
"I'd bet not," Harry muttered to himself.
"So she becomes divorced from Vernon and gains partial custody of Dudley. She gets full custody of Esmeralda, and as Petunia starts to feel more independently magical, the two become closer. Petunia starts dating a London cartoonist, and moves in with him in a London house with lots of wood, repurposed metal furniture, and exposed brickwork. Of course, she takes Esmeralda with her, and Esmeralda's home environment especially with her closer connection to her aunt becomes markedly different."
"That's… a lot to take in," Harry admitted. "All right, so - what are the other two doors?"
"The middle door is for a girl named Anastasia. She has red hair and hazel eyes. She is a Ravenclaw. Her wand is made of Acacia - a reddish wood that is sensitive, subtle, artistic, and tricky, but powerful.
"Petunia and Vernon get Anastasia into competitive baking, the only real hobby in the beginning they would allow her."
"That's probably true," Harry admitted.
"From there, Anastasia expands into other accomplishments: piano and violin, voice, and figure skating. Through this, she finds imagination, worth within her family, an ability to do accomplished things on her own, and family acceptance. She ceases to be bullied and the whole family dynamic changes with her new hobbies. Her family redecorates their wealthy suburban home; it becomes a modernist house filled with white colors, swirling light fixtures, glass and crystal, and wide airy spaces. Anastasia becomes an accomplished city suburban girl amid the intact and kinder Dursley family."
"And… the third door?" Harry asked tentatively.
"The door to the right belongs to a girl named Ingrid. She has strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. She is a Hufflepuff. Her wand is made of Pine - a strikingly straight grained creative and nonverbal wand wood, for intriguing and perhaps mysterious loners.
"In Ingrid's timeline, your Uncle Vernon is diagnosed with Asperger's after several employee complaints require a psych evaluation."
Harry snorted.
"Be serious, Harry," Lily warned. "Your uncle really has it."
Harry became more serious. "I… maybe I can see that," he admitted, thinking back over his uncle.
"Your uncle undergoes therapy, but he ends up divorcing your Aunt Petunia because she in her most unevolved form cannot handle the idea of having an 'abnormal' husband. Vernon moves with Marge into a country house on the outskirts of Surrey city, a spacious rustic place with big fireplaces, with her dogs. Getting to know you and Dudley up close, she becomes much kinder towards you. Because of this, Vernon ends up getting sole custody of both children, neatly leaving the blood protection intact through Dudley who starts to change under a different mothering influence.
"Your Aunt Petunia at some point tries to kidnap Dudley and is imprisoned. Meanwhile, you and Dudley learn to work around and help Vernon with his Asperger's, and a special family connection springs up."
"And… my story would start in any way with these childhood happenings?" Harry asked tentatively.
"Yes," said Lily.
"... My friends wouldn't be in my Hogwarts house," Harry realized, frowning. "Neither would Ginny."
"That doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't be a part of your life," Lily pointed out gently. "And you'd make new friends - and have new dates and loves. Actually, someone should have told you - any wizarding person is allowed up to two spouses."
"What?!" Harry's head shot up.
"Yes. Maximum two," said Lily, smoothly and matter of factly, putting her hands on her hips. "What, Harry? We're witches and wizards. We're Pagan. And two is the most logical, reasonable number."
Harry nodded, troubled and absent-minded. "So - I have to make the choice," he realized.
"... You do," Lily admitted.
With the broken soul's cries in his ears, Harry looked up at the doors.
In one timeline, Harry said, "If I were a Slytherin… it would be good to know more on the inside. To discover more about the Slytherin House I think I always wrongly hated."
And he took a deep breath, and walked through Esmeralda's door.
In one timeline, Harry said, "If I were a Ravenclaw… Ravenclaws are good, unobjectionable people but also intelligent high achievers, which would be useful."
And he took a deep breath, and walked through Anastasia's door.
In one timeline, Harry said, "If I were a Hufflepuff… Hufflepuffs are good people through and through, and they deserve a champion at last backing them up against bullies."
And he took a deep breath, and walked through Ingrid's door.
The divergences had happened. The chess pieces had been set.
The game was about to be played.
Time began to spin backwards with rapid color and speed - and in three separate timelines, the entire Harry Potter world changed.
And the story began again.
Author's Note: All three girls will be kept in this story. I will write alternating name-labeled chapters for each girl in turn. So first there will be Esmeralda One, then Anastasia One, then Ingrid One, etc. Starting from childhood and showing and novelizing all the changes there.
I'm planning on six pre-canon chapters for each girl. I want to really make sure I do a thorough job in showing these girls' differences, and six chapters was the fewest I could reasonably make it.