"It used to be thought that the events that changed the world were things like big bombs, maniac politicians, huge earthquakes, or vast population movements, but it has now been realized that this is a very old-fashioned view held by people totally out of touch with modern thought. The things that really change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe."
-Good Omens, Neil Gaiman
Chapter One
The world faded to black.
Lying flat on his back, a thin boy with black hair clutched his head with one arm, while with the other; he reached down into the grass to ground himself. But instead of feeling the silky leaves of grass beneath his fingers, his hands touched hard stone.
What?
Harry opened his emerald colored eyes in alarm. Where had the battlefield gone? Rows of trains filled his sight and he noted that the hall was unusually silent.
King's Cross Station?
Harry searched the train station for the enemy, for some hint that revealed he was in a nefarious trap waiting to be sprung by Voldemort; something, anything to tell him that what he was seeing was real and not make believe.
Harry's eyes failed him for the miraculous sign did not appear. Instead, Harry noticed a crying baby on an abandoned bench close to him.
Strangely, the baby's cries did not echo in the empty train station as it should have. The cries were silent, but the baby's facial expression was familiar- he had seen Dudley make the same face a million times over when Dudley had not gotten his way.
Harry got up from the rough ground and walked toward the distressed baby making sure to keep his guard up. Just because it did not appear to be trap, did not mean that it was not one.
Eventually, Harry reached the baby and lifted it up awkwardly, trying to comfort the frail person in his arms. The spell on the baby was broken and its loud piercing screams echoed in the abandoned train station. Harry began to rock the baby back in forth as he had seen it done on the telly when he had been given the rare opportunity to glance at it in the unwelcome Dursley home. Amazingly enough, Harry's inexperienced rocking lulled the baby and it stopped screaming.
As his attention was not on his surroundings, it was easy for a robed figure to approach Harry without his notice.
"Harry," a voice said breaking Harry's concentration on the little baby.
Harry quickly turned making sure not to startle the fragile cargo in his arms. What he saw shocked him to his core; a familiar old man with a long white beard in star spangled robes stood by Harry with a pensive expression on his face.
"Dumbledore…What are you doing here? Where are we?" Harry asked his voice trembling to reveal his shock. He almost dropped the baby held awkwardly in his arms. Luckily, his seeker skills kicked in and kept the baby held in a gentle, but firm grasp.
"Harry, you are at a crossroads between life and death. At the moment, your body is left in the forest where you died. But you have not truly died, Harry," Dumbledore explained pensively.
He continued, "Did you know that you had a horcrux in you? On the night that Voldemort tried to kill you as a baby, he made an accidental horcrux. You have been living with a fragment of Tom's soul in you for quite some time. I only suspected the connection when we found out that your curse scar had a connection to Tom's mind. However this evidence has confirmed it." Dumbledore said this with his voice filled with sorrow and regret that had only multiplied after his passing.
"What evidence?" Harry asked.
"That baby is a fragment of Tom's soul."
Harry looked at the cooing innocent baby in his arms in shock and noticed that the baby had a startling resemblance to a certain maniac who had been responsible for all of the hardships and losses in his short life. The blue eyes that were so similar to Tom Riddle's eyes from the diary in second year helped confirm the baby's identity.
Yet, Harry could not feel hate in his heart towards the baby. He remembered what Dumbledore had shown him; flashes of Tom Riddle's unloved existence at a destitute London orphanage flashed through his mind.
The baby would become a child so similar to him; unloved, unwanted and alone in the world. Could he allow that to happen? No. He could not allow another child to feel the burden of being a freak in a world unwelcome to those of extraordinary abilities.
Harry decided then and there to do what was right and do all that he could to make sure that this baby would be loved.
"Harry, you need to go back to the world and fulfill your destiny. Voldemort must be vanquished," Dumbledore said.
"Has not the prophecy been fulfilled? Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… Have not I died at Tom's hand, Dumbledore? Anyone can kill him now because the prophecy has been fulfilled. He killed me. All of his horcruxes are gone, even me," Harry said in a strong voice feeling the weight of the baby in his arms.
"Harry, you must go back and live. The Wizarding World needs you. Give the baby to me and I will make sure that it is properly disposed of," Dumbledore said in a placating tone.
"Disposed of…," Harry's voice trailed off in shock that Dumbledore was willing to get rid of the innocent in his arms. "I am dead and there is no force in the universe that will willingly make me give this baby, this innocent to you." Harry used one arm to reach into his pockets as he spoke to search for his wand in the event that he needed to use it to get away from Dumbledore. Both men did not notice the ambient magic in the air had begun to flow excitedly around them.
A choice had been made. A deal has been struck.
Dumbledore tried to make Harry see reason, "Harry, there are some people who cannot be saved. I learned this the hard way." But Harry's resolve had already strengthened by the disgusting thought of infanticide and worked against Dumbledore's arguments.
"I have already made my choice, Dumbledore and I will not give up this baby up to you," Harry spoke firmly in a no nonsense tone. As Harry voiced his decision, his words echoed throughout the train station, bouncing off the walls. Dumbledore moved to grab his own wand convinced that Harry would not willingly give up the baby. But before he could draw his wand, a bright light covered Harry and the baby.
The ambient magic danced, happy to be of service to a selfless person. In a flash, Harry and the baby disappeared without a trace leaving Dumbledore in the train station by himself.
Dumbledore smiled sadly and said to the open air and perhaps to himself, "Good luck, Harry. You have chosen the harder path."
Notes: This story may be familiar to you because I posted it on Fanfiction in 2012, but things didn't work out and I ended up deleting it. Now, I am trying again.