Disclaimer: Harry Potter's not mine.
-Chapter 3-
Harry watched as Sheila stared at him quizzically. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Harry shut his mouth immediately. "Like what?" Harry asked, feigning innocence, while reaching out to shake her hand.
She shrugged and shook back. "Never mind. I have to go do a potions assignment now though. See you both later!" Harry watched as Sheila walked down the hall.
Jess waved goodbye to Sheila before turning back to Harry. "So…cousins then? You look like my dad…a lot like him actually…except for the eyes…" she said thoughtfully. "I suppose we're related on my dad's side then. Huh. I didn't think he had siblings…"
Harry quickly realized that he would have to make up more of Dumbledore's story on the spot. "Yeah." He said immediately. "Your dad's side, I think. My dad was a Potter." Harry said. "But he was a Squib, so he went to Muggle school. And my mum was homeschooled. Something about corrupted Wizarding education." Harry explained. He reminded himself to write this down somewhere later, lest he forget any of it. "Well, uh, I have to get to the library. I missed some stuff for classes and I need to catch up." Harry said. Well, at least that was partly true.
Jess nodded. "Okay. See you later then! And about corrupted Wizarding education, you were very unlucky to come this year. We've got Umbridge, the toad." She then walked off in the same direction as Sheila, and turned around with a slightly horrified look on her face. "Don't tell her I said that." Then she turned and walked off for good.
He himself continued to the library, which thankfully was in the same place. He walked straight to the newspaper section, and took down an entire stack of Daily Prophets.
As he read, he learned that Peter Pettigrew had been caught the first time, and that Sirius had never been falsely accused. He had a daughter named Sheila, and she, Jessica Potter and Sirius had been living happily together at Grimmauld Place since Jess was born.
Harry grabbed another stack of newspapers and skimmed over his Hogwarts years. It looked like things had gone relatively the same for the first two years, and third year was when things had gotten different. Instead of Sirius Black escaping from Azkaban, Peter Pettigrew had, and had immediately gone to find and rejoin Voldemort. Fourth year was when things got similar again. Jess had been selected for the Triwizard Tournament, along with Fleur, Krum, and Cedric. However, despite the fact that Voldemort had managed to return, Jess and Cedric had both managed to get back to Hogwarts alive.
That explained why Jess and Sheila had been so cheerful when he'd first met them. The war wasn't going nearly as badly for them as it was for him and his world, and Jess also hadn't had to deal with the Dursleys' magic-hating ways.
But, it seemed they couldn't have everything. Umbridge had still been appointed Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and was as toadlike and horrible as ever. It didn't appear she'd become High Inquisitor yet, but Harry had almost no doubt that she would. This universe seemed to be a bit behind his, time-wise. According to the latest newspaper, it was only November.
Satisfied he had memorized the biggest differences, Harry got up and stretched, putting back the newspapers. Glancing at the clock on the wall, Harry realized lunch must be nearly over. But since he had just eaten dinner, he instead headed back to the Gryffindor Common Room. He told the Fat Lady the password and climbed through the portrait hole, surprised to see this universe's Ron and Hermione sitting on one of the sofas, talking quietly. Or rather, Hermione was talking quietly and Ron looked like he was trying not to shout.
"But all she spouts is bloody rubbish!" Harry heard Ron complain as he got nearer. "I mean, she's crazy! And she wants us to write a five page paper on her predictions by tomorrow! Like half of them are predicting Jess's death, and the other half are…I don't even know! I stopped listening!" Ron buried his face in his hands.
Hermione smiled brightly. "You should've dropped it when I did. But in the meantime, I advise you to just make things up-"
"Yeah, if you write five pages of different ways I'll die I bet she'll be super happy. You'll get an O." Harry heard Jess's sullen voice from behind him as she walked over to her friends.
Ron groaned, but Harry smiled slightly. Apparently some things never changed. He continued to the dormitories, only turning slightly when Jess called his name. "Harry! If you haven't signed up for classes yet, don't take Divination!"
"Choose something sensible, like Arithmancy." Hermione added smugly from behind her.
Harry gave them both a thumbs up and a nod. "I'll keep that in mind." He said, and continued up to the dormitories, where he found the untouched bed that he supposed must be now his. He honestly hadn't been planning on staying here long enough for classes. What was taking Ron and Hermione so long?
-Meanwhile, in Harry's world-
"It's no use Ron!" Hermione groaned at him as Ron waved his wand uselessly, shouting the incantation from page 63. "It's not working! Somebody ripped out the instructions!"
Ron frowned. "Why would someone make the countercurse so much harder than the curse itself. I mean, it specifically says here that the only person who can bring him back is the person who cast the spell. So…" Ron trailed off, looking helplessly at Hermione. "Maybe we should go to Dumbledore."
Hermione nodded and took a deep breath before tucking the book into her bag. "If there's anyone who can help, it's Dumbledore." Was all she said before she followed Ron out the portrait hole.
When Hermione and Ron stopped running outside Dumbledore's gargoyle, they were not met by Dumbledore but instead by a sneering Professor Snape. "Well well well. I see that after five years of coming to school here, you both have failed to grasp the simple rule of no running in the halls. 5 points from Gryffindor. Each." He said, glaring down at them.
Hermione groaned inwardly, while Ron took it upon himself to tell Snape that they must talk with Dumbledore immediately.
"He's on a very special assignment for the Order and won't be back for at least another week." He glared, sounding more pleased than sorry. "Your precious business will have to wait."
"Wait, professor!" Hermione called after him, but his batlike figure already gone. "McGonagall then?" Hermione asked Ron softly, turning towards the staircase and wondering at Snape's behavior. Despite his hate for Harry, Snape had always seemed loyal to the Order and it didn't seem like he would turn them away without a chance to explain themselves. On the other hand, they were just students. And maybe it had to do with Harry's Occlumency lessons. From what he'd told her, they weren't going too well.
Ron nodded silently and turned to follow Hermione. It was his fault his best friend was stuck in another dimension and he couldn't do anything about it.
-Harry's New World-
At the end of his nap, Harry decided that his friends must be having a lot more trouble with page 63 than he had previously thought they would. He took a deep breath, trying not to panic about being stuck in an alternate dimension while Voldemort could attack his friends at any moment and he would be able to do nothing about it. Now that he thought about it, he was sure his friends must be feeling horrible too. He wished he could reassure them that it really wasn't their fault, and that this was just an accident, but he had no way to contact them.
Finally Harry decided to head down to the common room, not being able to think about this anymore. When he got to the common room, he started when he realized the time – it was ten to six. Cursing himself for not remembering, Harry practically ran to Filch's office.
"You'll be mopping up the puddles on the third floor." She instructed with a glare, before giving him a mop and a bucket. She pointed him in the right direction and added as an afterthought, "no magic". Harry groaned. This was going to be a long night.
A/N: So, it's been a while. I've taken a pretty long break from writing but I decided to try it again. I actually wrote this chapter quite a while ago but never got around to posting it. Anyway, since I wrote this way back in my freshman year of high school I don't actually remember where I was going with it. But I'm still going to try to continue it, since I still like the idea.
