Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series belongs to its various owners. No copyright infringement is intended. This is a work of fan fiction and no profit is being made.
1-01
"Dudley! Harry!" said a voice. Aunt Petunia. "Both of you, here, now. Breakfast's ready."
I shook my head, feeling a chill rise up my spine at the same moment that my stomach tossed and turned. My heart was beating faster, sweat lining my brow and my mind abuzz because all of this seemed like a dream. Not neccesarily a nightmare, but still surreal enough that I was left with a feeling of wrongness.
It didn't help that this wasn't where I was supposed to be.
I looked at my hands again for the fifth time that day. They were shorter than I remembered them, younger and without the scars; looking up my arm I couldn't see the words Umbridge had made me crawl on one arm nor the scar Wormtail had cut into the other. This body, this me, was much younger.
"Dudley! Harry! Both of you get down here right now or I'm going to take away all your toys," said Aunt Petunia. That sense of wrongness came again, stronger than ever because this wasn't making any sense.
Was it possible that I was under some spell? Being tortured and my mind finding retreat were it could? Or was it some attempt to infiltrate my mind and get information?
Panic started to seize me but I pushed it back and started some breathing exercises until it all stopped. I thought back, pushing my mind to remember the last memory: Falling asleep with Lily's form curled beside me. Ginny had gone to an sporting exhibition in France for a week and Lily was starting to feel downcast that she was the only child in the house.
How did that become this? He didn't remember anyone breaking into the house. He didn't remember a fight. He didn't remember anything that spoke of foul play.
Even so I was here. Not in my house, but staying with my Aunt and Uncle all while wearing my eleven year old body.
Footsteps broke me from my thought process and then the door was pushed open. It wasn't my door, but a door immediately opposite my own. I let my thoughts drift as I heard Aunt Petunia speaking to Dudley, instead noticing other differences.
My room in particular. Everything was wrong about it. There were too many childish things. Toys on every surface, large posters on the walls and a generally lived in look that I didn't remember in my childhood.
If this was an attempt to get my mind under a false sense of security then it wouldn't work because the person doing it had no idea what my younger life had been like.
Another set of quick footsteps and then the doorknob was turned and the door pushed. It stuck, locked.
"Harry, open this door," said Aunt Petunia, impatience in the tone. Even that she was calling me this rang of wrongness.
I took a few steps, turned the key and stepped back. Aunt Petunia towered above me, expression of exasperation before it quickly softened.
"Brush your teeth then downstairs," she said. "I told you yesterday we've got to get to Diagon Alley early so we don't get swept up in the rush."
What?
What?
"Harry?" said Aunt Petunia. She moved forward and put a hand on my forehead. "Are alright? Are you feeling sick? You look a little pale," she said, all of it with concern.
What?
"I—" the words didn't come out. I wanted to push them out but my mind had stopped working. What in Merlin's name is going on? seemed to be the only thought my mind could make.
Aunt Petunia cooed. "Brush your teeth," she said, "then back to bed. I'll bring your breakfast up." She gave me a light push and I moved on automatic.
The house was all wrong, the dimensions off and not the right style. This room, the smaller room, wasn't where it was supposed to be. The bathroom was bigger, more decorated in stuff I might have liked back then, mixes of muggle and magical toys at the edges of the tub.
Mechanically I brushed my teeth and then I returned to my room. When I got there Dudley was waiting for me. Different but in a pronounced way, a bit of baby fat but all of it in a frame which said 'there'll be muscle here soon.'
"Mom said I should bring you these," said Dudley. He was looking at me as though he was looking at a ghost, equal parts confusion and relief on him. "She said to tell you we'll be going to the Alley when you feel better."
I nodded slowly, trying to get my head around all this. Both of them knew about Diagon Alley. Both of the knew about magic. Magical toys were in this house. I was in my eleven year old body. Why? Why all this? What had caused all this? What is all this?
"I'll be going then," said Dudley, slowly. He walked towards the door, but as he got close to me I could see him sniff, eyes glazing over. I flinched all of a sudden as he threw himself at me and wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug.
He was saying something I couldn't quite make out, lost in the sniffling and heaving. I felt awkward because none of this made any sense whatsoever.
A full minute passed before he pushed himself off me, muttered an apology and then ran out of the room.
Ten minutes passed where I was transfixed; my legs growing tired, ten minutes were spent just sitting staring into space; and then I forced myself out of it. Whatever was happening here needed to be solved. I just had to think it through, put all that magical education into work into figuring things out.
This wasn't a dream or mental projection. The former would mean I wouldn't have noticed this, my mind would work on its own into making sense of this entire world and the latter would be much harsher. I wasn't the best or even an average Occlumens to exist, but I was proficient enough that I would be able to detect mental intrusion, and right now I wasn't doing anything.
Which meant this was reality.
I was in my eleven year old self, which meant this was time travel, but of the mental sort. If it was total time travel then I would be in my much older body with all the scars that came with it.
But this wasn't just ordinary time travel. Things were different. The Dursleys knew about magic, embraced it even, something that hadn't happened when I had really be eleven years old. And Dudley was emotional.
Dudley. Emotional.
"Okay," I muttered to myself. "Time travel with a deviation point." Things would have changed to fit that deviation and as I could tell it was the Dursleys embracing magic. How far did that ripple though? And what did I do know?
Did I change things? Would that cause a paradox? Technically a deviation had already set and what future I could predict was already dramatically altered by this. What would a few more changes do in the grander scheme?
But this was mainly because I didn't want to see the multitude of deaths again. I didn't want Voldemort to do the damage he had to so many people, to leave other children as he'd left me, even if this time around it meant that I would have to die because of my nature.
First though, I needed to sort out all of the differences. Everything would be different because of this point. I would need to spend the next few days parsing out the differences and trying to figure out how they would impact the future.
Goal set, I started to feel a little calmer if only a little.
My food wasn't cold. Maybe some sort of enchantment on the dishes. A lot more magic in this place and yet there was also technology. Was that another difference? Something in the past shifting so that someone worked on the divide between magic and technology?
After that I went into the kitchen, making sure I moved through the entire house to get a feel of it. The wrongness became more pronounced particularly in the living room, pictures of me, Dudley and Aunt Petunia.
No Uncle Vernon.
The stranger part was that we were all happy. A part of me wished that it could get a glimpse of the memories of my younger self. How Aunt Petunia was when I when she showed kindness. I'd seen it when it was in with Dudley, but it had always been warped by the fact that I was hungry for the same thing and that asking for it would have given me nothing but scorn.
I placed the dishes in the sink and, after some thought, gave them a wash. I was just getting done when Aunt Petunia bustled into the room, what looked like a manuscript in her hands.
"You shouldn't be doing that, love," said Aunt Petunia. "Ringo will be here soon. He'll clean things up."
I nodded. Who was Ringo? I shook the thought away and chose a closer question, "What's that?"
"Oh. This," she said. She wore a broad grin, practically beaming. "I've finally finished it. My publisher should give it a read-through for the next month before it's published."
An author? And she had to be reasonably good if we could afford this large a house, especially if she was a single parent.
"Have you thought of a title?" I asked.
"Stalker," she said. "It's a murder mystery. Solving crimes without magic. The lead's a squib. Pandering, I know," she said, "but wizards love a familiar element. Next book is going to be a muggle lead." She took a breath. "I was hoping it would only be one trip to Diagon Alley, but since you aren't feeling well…"
"No," I said. "It's find. I just…had a bad dream. Mom and dad," I said on impulse. Aunt Petunia's expression dropped. She moved forward and engulfed me in a hug, giving me a kiss on the forehead.
"It's okay, honey," she said. "He's gone. Never coming back."
"Yeah, I know," I told her. So I knew about Voldemort. She'd told me about everything. "It was just a dream. I'm sorry if I worried you."
"I'm your aunt," she said. "Of course you can worry me. Go on, then. Tell Dudley we're going and take a shower."
Wrongness.
All the wrongness.
All of the wrongness spreading through me. I felt good. I loved this. I had always wanted this and yet because I'd grown without I found it eerie. Dudley had calmed down enough to listen to my words and after a shower I sat in the living room. It didn't take longer than half an hour before we were standing in our fireplace and shouting, "Diagon Alley."