One Universe to the Left

Chapter Two

Back from the Grave


Harry opened his eyes, and found one hundred and sixty-eight crystals inside three stacked, wrought iron rings holding a total of twenty-three candles. Then a healthy-looking Sirius popped his head into view with a wide, mischievous grin. "Hello, Harry. I wasn't expecting you quite yet. Whose house did you burn down this time?"

Harry shouted in alarm and Apparated away.


The first place Harry thought of was Hogwarts, but obviously with the wards that wouldn't work, so he chose the next best thing: the village of Hogsmeade. At least, he thought it would be the next best thing...until he landed in a pile of rubble where the alley behind Hog's Head Tavern should have been.

Quickly checking that he hadn't splinched himself from landing in such a mess, he emerged to find a much different and much emptier village than he'd been expecting. Not empty of people—that much was expected during the summer when no students could make their way down there—but it was empty of...heart. It could have been his imagination, but despite the bright summer sun, the entire village seemed to lack color, it was like he was seeing the town on a dreary, cloudy fall day. He fingered his wand nervously as he took in the blackened pockmarks, gashes, and holes that scarred the once manicured grounds and once lively shop facades. The fountain in the village square lay empty, cleaved in two by a level of magical power few wizards could produce.

How much had changed since he'd holed himself up in Grimmauld Place? The thought seemed preposterous almost as soon as it formed. In his seclusion he had completely avoided all news, both magical and Muggle, but surely Hermione or even Ginny would have mentioned an attack on Hogsmeade!

Memories of sensory deprivation and soothing phoenix song filled his mind and provided the explanation: far more time must have passed than he realized. Sirius must have been merely a hallucination upon waking from that...hallucination? Harry massaged his temples when his brain unsuccessfully tried to interpret and connect the most recent events in his memory: Ginny's visit, the phoenix song, Sirius, and now...this.

A dozen staccato pops of Apparition interrupted his confusion, and his heart stopped as he saw the black robes. However, no masks hid their faces, and most of newcomers sported a white armband except the man nearest him, who wore a red one with some sort of crest. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" The man with a red armband, clearly the leader, asked rather more harshly than Harry thought necessary.

"Er...just..." Harry stammered, planning to ignore the first question but not knowing what to say to the second. "I've been out of town...er, the country, really...and I—"

"He's lying! Take him! Defodio!"

A shimmering blue Shield Charm leapt into existence around Harry, but the Gouging Spell struck the ground at his feet, throwing him off-balance and spraying chips of rock up into his face. Half the Stunners ricocheted off the Shield and the others sailed over him as he purposefully continued his roll away from the follow-up attacks.

Unfortunately, his initial escape only encouraged his would-be captors to up the ante. When a sickly yellow Bone-Breaker rung his Shield like a gong, Harry knew he needed to flee post-haste. Recasting his Shield without breaking his roll, he fluidly rose to his feet and sprinted back the way he came, holding his wand behind him to continue deflecting curses.

"He's getting away," the leader barked, "get through the Shield! Avada Kedavra!"

Well, there went the last hope he was facing some new Auror unit. Not that Harry had gotten that feeling in the first place, considering they hadn't spread out to surround him, they were sticking to straight curses, and they hadn't even tried to close on him. The only remotely interesting thing they'd done was force him to lose his footing. Harry dropped the Shield and spun to face the sickly green curses - plural, as he'd heard at least two echoes - slashing his wand forcefully across his body. The silent Gouging Spell blasted a knee-high trench in the pavement behind which Harry once again rolled to the ground. Two Killing Curses rushed over his head while the third clipped the barrier, once again spraying him with chips of rock and dust.

Blood pounded in Harry's ears, stoking his fury. Who did these people think they were, and what the hell had they done to Hogsmeade? He had tried to avoid fighting back, but they used the Killing Curse. That meant all bets were off. Less than a second passed since he had hit the ground and came back up to a crouch, time slowing as adrenaline pumped into his system. Ginny was dead wrong about fighting making him feel happy, but damn it to bloody hell, battle made him feel alive.

A swish-and-flick lifted chunks of torn up pavement into the air, and a vicious swipe Banished them at his attackers. A watermelon-sized chunk exploded as it intercepted a sickly-green curse, but it flew with such momentum that it only widened the barrage. A smaller rock smashed into the leader's shoulder, sending him spinning into one of his men. Four others went down clutching their legs and groins. Only two, the furthest back, got Shield Charms up in time and counterattacked.

Already moving, Harry dashed left and jabbed his wand forward, sending a full dozen thin streams of fire twisting their way toward the still-reeling Death Eaters. Several tried Flame-Freezing Charms, but the streams were so thin they missed. The smarter ones cast Shield Charms, which hissed and spat as the whips of flame raked the translucent blue half-domes. He attacked the edges relentlessly, forcing them to bunch together.

The Death Eaters tried to overlap Shield Charms, but with surgical precision, Harry slipped the flames through the cracks, forcing them back with screams of pain. "Retreat! Retreat!" The call finally came, and nine of them winked out of existence. Portkeys, unless Harry missed his guess.

His split Fire-Making Charm—idly Harry thought he needed to come up with a better name for it—fizzled out, though he remained tense and vigilant with his eyes trained on the three remaining enemies. When he registered no movement or sound but the wind lightly brushing the trees in the distance, Harry approached, and with three sharp flicks of his wand, hit each with a thick, blood red Stunner. The bodies didn't even twitch.

Steeling himself, blood still pounding, Harry knelt to check the nearest. A slash of angry red and orange skin crossed his face, passing over a ruined left eye and disappearing by his right ear. A regular pulse, far slower than Harry's own, proved the man was still alive.

Cruelty did not play a factor in Harry's decision to leave him as-is; he knew no healing spells that might help such vicious wounds, nor could he create a Portkey or otherwise get him to safety. He didn't know where St. Mungo's was anyway. The man's wand remained in his hand, a measure of mercy that surely would not have been afforded him had their situations been reversed.

The next one wasn't so lucky. Blood dripped ever so slowly out of the open wound on his hideously bruised neck, a sure sign that a sharp chunk of rock flying at high velocity took his life. Harry Scoured the pool of blood away and conjured a plain, white shroud to cover the corpse. Conjuring flexible material was considerably harder for Harry than simple stone, so he counted that another kindness.

Before he could do more than extinguish the fire on the third, yet another series of pops—fewer this time, no more than four—sent Harry diving for cover. It was no use: they'd Apparated directly in line-of-sight of his hiding place.

The man in the lead...there was no mistaking him. Despite the plain robes and different hat, Harry recognized him immediately. But that was impossible...Harry saw him die. Harry watched the man's lifeless body lowered into the grave.

His mind raced to justify it. The Killing Curse didn't kill everybody it hit, now did it? But he was buried! Wizards can refresh the air in a coffin, otherwise the Bubble-Head Charm would suffocate the caster in short order. But the Elder Wand...

His thoughts cut off abruptly as a one-legged, hideously scarred man clopped into view, along with another man Harry didn't recognize. "Pardon me," Albus Dumbledore called out from across the courtyard. "Would you mind—"

Before Harry could hear any more or come to any conclusion on why the greatest wizard in his lifetime would fake his death, he jumped up and Apparated away to the first place that popped into his head where they wouldn't think to look for him.


The captain's chair in Sirius' kitchen, Albus mused, was a good place to think. He sat with his elbows on the armrests, hands slowly stroking his long, scruffy beard, temporarily freed from his belt for this very purpose. The little tugs jarred ideas loose, he always claimed. "Who was it, Albus?"

The aged former headmaster sighed and let his gaze roam over the five Order members that had immediately answered his summons before turning back to his rather exhausted-looking successor. "I am afraid we simply do not know, Minerva. He seemed familiar somehow, but his face and clothing were covered in soot."

"Bah, we don't even know it was him that did them," Alastor Moody cut in harshly. "He was probably just some scavenger. The rest of the bloody Aurors probably took the one who did it." His face twisted into an ugly, scarred grimace every time he called them that, not that Albus could blame him. The Aurors had become the very things they were meant to stop. The travesty left a sour taste in the aged, former Auror's mouth, Albus know, and not the pleasant, lemon sherbet sour.

"Mad-Eye's right," Frank Longbottom cut in. "He looked young to me...he couldn't've been long out of school. Hell, he was probably some recruit left behind to clean the mess."

"I believe you are both mistaken," Albus said. "Consider his reaction to our appearance, both the speed of his diving for cover and eventual hesitation when he saw us, and the casual way he extinguished the flames on one of the bodies just as we appeared. The damage to those bodies was ghastly. That, to me, speaks of a man used to the horrors of battle."

Frank looked thoughtful, and Alastor just grunted, which meant much the same thing.

"What could it mean, Albus?" The ever fidgety Dedalus Diggle looked especially nervous, even though he hadn't been anywhere near there, and he generally stayed hidden.

Elphias Doge, the other immediate arrival, said nothing. As usual, Albus' old friend seemed to be catching up on sleep. He hated being alone at his house, Albus knew, ever since Mrs. Doge died decades earlier.

"I must admit I do not know, Dedalus. The man's hesitation and flight are puzzling indeed." He trailed off, trying to determine why the subject of their conversation seemed familiar.

Minerva broke the thoughtful silence that followed. "If you'd like to share the memory, Albus, I may recognize him."

"An excellent suggestion, Minerva...clearly we will find no answers between the three of us who witnessed the event. However, I think it best we wait for our fellow members of the Order. There is no sense repeating the story several times, and Nymphadora's report may shed some light on this mystery."

"Oh, a mystery, you say?"

Albus turned and smiled at the ostentatious voice that called from the doorway to the kitchen. "Indeed, Sirius. I am surprised to find you have arrived so promptly."

Sirius chuckled at that. "Yes, well, don't get used to it. Something strange happened earlier—"

"I like how the fact that this is your house had nothing to do with you actually showing up on time," a new voice broke in.

"Moony!" Sirius slapped his friend on the shoulder. "You should know me better than that, old chap. How are you?"

"Recovered," Remus Lupin said. With the full moon only two days past, his voice disagreed, but Albus smiled at the man anyway. "You were saying?"

"As much as I would like to hear the answer to that," Albus cut in, "perhaps we should wait for the others."

Bill Weasley slipped in wordlessly, giving only curt nods in greeting until Emmeline Vance came in and continued to try to break through the redhead's melancholy. The McKinnons followed shortly thereafter, Douglas and Darlene along with their eldest, Glenn. Albus still fondly recalled the boy as the most fair-minded Slytherin Prefect in years. "And how is young Elspeth?" Albus asked once they'd traded greetings.

"Fine," Marlene answered curtly. "Still too young for the Order."

He held his hands up in surrender. "Come now, Marlene, I didn't mean to imply—"

"Of course you didn't," she said, cutting him off with an arched eyebrow. Albus started to make a placating gesture, but her eyes slid back to the door and immediately softened. "Lily! How are you, dear?" Albus turned in time to see James and Lily Potter mobbed by the McKinnons, Sirius and Remus, who'd immediately risen when the Potters entered. "How are the kids?"

"Oh, fine," Lily said. "Rose is watching William for the moment. She said you came by, Sirius?"

He nodded. "Yeah, looking for Harry."

"Oh, Harry said he'd be here late," James said. "We got his note just a minute before we came."

Sirius looked confused a moment, but another arrival distracted him.

"Oi, Siri! You gonna let me in here, or do I have to hulk out and scare you outta the doorway?" Nymphadora Tonks strolled in with bright green skin - a joke Albus didn't get, but he chuckled anyway. Youth in high spirits always lifted his own; being surrounded by so many happy children was the thing he missed most about being headmaster at Hogwarts.

"Thank you all for coming," Albus finally called, gesturing for everybody to sit when they turned at the sound of his voice. "Now, you will all be pleased to know—"

"'Ang on there, Dumbledore," another voice called from the door. "I'm 'ere, I'm 'ere."

"Of course, Mundungus, thank you for joining us," Albus said, chuckling to himself and ignoring the eye rolls Mundungus received from most of the Order. "As I was saying, You will all be pleased to know first of all that nothing bad has happened. I was made aware that someone was near the former Hog's Head Tavern," he said, reflexively not mentioning the hidden cellar where his alarm ward was anchored, even though all members of the Order knew about it. "I gathered Frank and Alastor to investigate, and upon arrival it was readily apparent that a small battle had just occurred near the central fountain." At least, it was the central fountain up until a few years ago, but Albus did not mention that. "We discovered some puzzling facts, so before sharing them I would like to start with Nymphadora, if you please. What news from the Ministry?"

She cringed slightly at his referring to her by her first name, but he knew she had long accepted his insistence on calling her that. "Well, the office is in an uproar, of course. A newly-trained squad of Inquisitors was dispatched to Hogsmeade when the alert ward around the old Hog's Head tripped. Out of the twelve, only two came back unharmed. Three didn't come back at all. I didn't see the injured, but I heard they were pretty well burned and beaten. They tried to hush it up later, but word is it was a single 'dissident.'"

"Only one, you say?" Albus glanced at Frank and Alastor, who took the news with some surprise.

Frank whistled. "That kid did a number on them."

"So it would seem," Albus agreed.

Nymphadora gave him a questioning look. "Kid?"

"I believe Frank, Alastor, and I arrived shortly after the Inquisitors fled," he said. "A young man had apparently covered one of the bodies with a sheet, and, just as we arrived, he extinguished the flames on another. He dove into an Alleyway straight ahead of us shortly thereafter, and then he Disapparated when I called out to him."

The room fell silent after that, thinking of the possibilities. Albus noted even Elphias had a scrunched up look of confusion at that.

"So you saw him," Nymphadora clarified.

"Indeed, although we did not see him very well," Albus said. "In fact, he was quite dirty, though the battlefield was fairly damaged, so perhaps that should not be surprising. Oddly, though, he seemed to be covered in soot."

"What?" Sirius jumped up suddenly, startling several members of the Order. "Soot?"

"That is correct," Albus said.

"What's this about, Padfoot?" James asked.

"That's what I was going to tell you earlier. I found Harry lying in the drawing room not an hour ago, dazed and disoriented. I woke him up and he screamed and Disapparated. Albus, he was covered in soot."

"What?" This time James jumped up.

"That's not funny, Sirius Orion Black," Lily said harshly.

Sirius put his hands up. "No, Lils, I swear! That's why I popped over to your house to see if he'd gone there. I knew he'd get the meeting notice so I came back here before I could search any further."

"We've got to go look for him," James said. "If he came back early and didn't tell us..."

"Look for who?" Another new voice sounded from the door.

Albus turned and found himself looking into the bright green eyes of Harry Potter, and suddenly the familiarity he felt back in Hogsmeade came rushing back. But surely it wasn't... "You," Albus said.


A/N:

Short, fast-paced...I'm not even giving the characters time to finish what they're saying. Frustrating? Realistic?

In case it wasn't obvious, the Harry Potter that just showed up is the one native to this universe. A couple early readers were confused about that.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think.

EDIT (7 Sept 2014)

Updated some of Dumbledore's dialogue after receiving some comments that he didn't sound quite right. I agreed.