They were on the train to London for Harry Potter's first visit to Diagon Alley. Harrison felt a wave of nostalgia as Harry read his school list. He looked at Hagrid and wondered if Dumbledore had given him the pattern for his enormous yellow knitting project. He never had found out what it was.
It was their birthday. Harry was eleven and Harrison, so far as he could tell, was twenty seven. Ten years as an invisible and entirely insubstantial spectre had forced him to be patient. At first he had raged at his inability to interfer with the Dursleys treatment of Harry, but it did not take long for him to become bored with this useless haunting of his aunt and uncle's house. He traveled Britain for a short while, but grew frustrated with his inability to interact with anyone or anything save Death, whose visits were very rare. The desire for a body soon became a singular, driving ambition which filled the decade between Voldemort's disappearance and Harry's arrival in Diagon Alley.
Harrison often thought about Voldemort's spirit, furious and alone in the forests of Albania, and laughed with rather grim amusement at the similarity of their predicaments.
...
Once, sometime around Harry's third birthday, Death warned Harrison that corporeality would be permanent. He would not be able to shift back into a spectre. Harrison did not mind. He asked if he could chose his appearance, for he had realized that he must not be instantly recognizable if he were to remain inconspicuous. Death said that he could.
Then Harrison asked if Death could teach him Occlumency first, to protect his mind and his memories from Voldemort, Snape, and Dumbledore. What would be the point of spending years crafting a body if his plans went up in smoke the moment one of these men read his mind? Death agreed and, over the next several years, he helped Harrison build Occlumancy walls strong enough and subtle enough to keep his secrets safe. It was during this time that Harrison finally learnt a measure of control over his emotions and his temper.
...
Because he got bored, Harrison did not see Harry grow into a small, skinny boy with knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes. He did not see that Harry liked his thin, lighting bolt shaped scar. When he was still quite small Harry asked his Aunt where it had come from and that night, as he lay in his cupboard, Harry strained to remember the car crash that killed his parents. He came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain in his forehead.
Harrison did not see Harry open his eyes and stifle a cry when the burning pain did not go away. He did not see Harry clap his hands to the side of his head as pressure built in his forehead, desperate to make it stop.
He was not there when Harry miraculously re-grew his hair overnight, or when he Apparated onto the roof of the school kitchens to escape his bullies. Harrison was not there because, he told himself, he knew what was going to happen and there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet.
Harrison did not follow Harry and the Dursleys to the zoo because he knew about the boa constrictor and the vanishing glass, and there was nothing he could do about Harry's underage magic. He did not see Harry get a mild concussion when he fell hard on the concrete floor of the reptile house, and he did not see Harry shaking in his cupboard when the Horcrux in his scar reacted to Harry's first use of Parseltongue.
Because he got bored, Harrison did not see Harry unwittingly force the tiny sliver of Voldemort's soul behind a thick wall of his own magic.
...
Harrison returned to Privet Drive in time for the kurfuffle over Harry's first Hogwarts letter, and he was brought up short by Petunia's fear that "they" were watching the house. She was right, wasn't she?
The letter was from McGonagall. If she knew he had slept in the cupboard under the stairs, why hadn't she done anything about it? McGonagall had been the only voice of protest when Dumbledore and Hagrid left his younger self to face the Dursleys with nothing but a blanket and a letter. Harrison had been sure that his Transfiguration professor would check on Harry, perhaps by pretending to be one of Mrs. Figg's cats, but no luck. He supposed that Dumbledore, who he now knew received a twice annual report from Mrs. Figg, had told McGonagall not to worry.
Dumbledore. Harrison had not, in the end, forgiven the headmaster for failing to trust him. He replayed their encounter at King's Cross over and over in his head, analyzing what Dumbledore had said and wondering at the things he had left out.
When I have a body, he told himself, one of the first things I'll do is get my hands on a Pensieve.
His enigmatic conversation with Dumbledore made him think about Hallows and Horcruxes, and about whether he regretted his decision to board the train. He often thought about Ron and Hermione as well, and about Ginny and Neville and everyone else who had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. What had happened to them? Had the world he knew continued without him or had it rewound with him, like a Muggle cassette tape, to the moment when James Potter died? Where was the bloodied, shivering Horcrux child now, if King's Cross station had been both real and inside his head?
Death met these questions and many others with silence, as though he expected Harrison to find the answers himself. In these moments the anthropomorphic personification reminded him, rather horribly, of Dumbledore at his worst. Any goodwill which Harrison felt toward the headmaster at the end of his previous life had faded into apathetic disappointment. He understood better, now, why Dumbledore had made a chessboard of his life, but he would never thank him for it. He refused to focus on the 'greater good' as Dumbledore had done. He would not repeat the older wizard's mistakes.
Harrison realized that this put him in a rather difficult position. He felt sure that his past could have been better than it was, but, once he had a body…how could he change this world for the better without meddling in Harry's life the way Dumbledore had meddled in his? He knew he could not just meddle differently. He was not so arrogant as to think himself a better chessmaster than Dumbledore even with his limited knowledge of the future. These memories were his greatest asset, yet he knew they would do him no good if he started changing things right off the bat. In any case, he could do nothing but watch until he got himself a proper body.
...
July 31, 1991.
The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.
"Bless my soul," whispered the old barman. "Harry Potter – what an honour."
He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and seized his hand, tears in his eyes.
"Welcome back, Mr Potter, welcome back."
The crowd remained still and staring for a long moment, then crowded around the young boy. Harry looked confused and not a little uncomfortable, although Hagrid appeared not to notice. Harrison waited. He intended, with no small amount of trepidation, to use Harry's first interaction with Quirrell to test whether Voldemort could sense his presence.
A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching. Harrison held his breath. He moved behind Harry, then into him so that his form overlapped the boy's body as much as possible. He crouched so that Quirrell seemed to meet both of their eyes.
"Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid. "Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."
"P-P-Potter," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand, "c-can't t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you."
Harrison stared. "What?" he cried. Of course, nobody heard him.
Quirrell had shaken his hand? How on earth could Harry touch the professor without burning him? For one horrible moment, Harrison wondered if Lily's protection had not taken hold.
There must be an explanation.
He followed Harry and Hagrid out the back door and into Diagon Alley, thinking. He knew Quirrell would try and fail to steal the Stone later that same day. Voldemort, he felt, was cunning enough to break in undetected, so it must have been Quirrell's fault that the break-in made the Daily Prophet. Perhaps Quirrell was merely allied with Voldemort's spirit, and did not yet have the Dark Lord sticking out the back of his head.
He did not know.
