AN: I OWN NOTHING

BETAD BY GECKOSHAN

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ENJOY!

Chapter 4–Break on through

"Are these the voices

of our dead friends or

just the gramophone?"—George Seferis.


3 May 2028

Harry Potter, Chief Auror.

It took Harry a few minutes to remember where he was, once he woke up.

He and Ginny had spread out the night before, moving along with some of the muggles to the apartment adjacent to the one where they'd arrived in.

The beds were serviceable, for all that he'd been half-asleep when he'd transfigured them.

He woke up to the changing light outside, the beginning of sunrise lighting up the room.

He'd been too tired to fix the hole where a window had once been, and Ginny had been too busy helping the muggles out.

At least it wasn't too cold out.

He sat up slowly, cracking his back and stretching his arms.

And then he gasped, as he took in the sight of the room and the events of the previous day streamed through his mind.

His startled noise woke up Ginny.

She turned her face toward him and sleepily said: "Harry? Is everything all right, love?"

He didn't reply, too busy trying to make sense of everything he'd experienced and learned the previous day.

When he didn't answer, she rolled over and rubbed at her eyes.

"Harry? What's going on? Where-oh, fuck!"

"Yeah," he whispered. "Yeah."

Before they could get any further in conversation, a loud knocking sounded at their door.

Harry lurched to the side, grabbing his wand from next to the bed.

"Hello?" He called out uncertainly.

"Excellent, you're awake," his own voice answered from the other side of the door, "can you guys be ready to leave in half an hour or so?"

He glanced over at Ginny, who nodded.

"Yeah, we'll be ready."

"Great. Great. We'll meet in the apartment we arrived in, leave from there. See you."

Harry flopped back onto the bed, his heart pounding.

"He sounds chipper."

"What are you gonna do about him?" Ginny asked softly.

He sighed. "No idea. He's not...stable. I think it's making it harder for him, seeing how well things turned out for us. But I can't just let him take over."

"And you can't just fight him either."

"No way. He's-"

Harry swallowed, images from the fight in the slave auction running through his mind.

"He's better than me, Ginny, and that's a fact. But even if he wasn't, I wouldn't want to fight him, to fracture this group. Our best chance of getting home is if we're all working together."

Ginny started crying softly, tears pouring down her face.

"Ginny, don't-don't cry. It's-we're going to be OK. We're-"

"I keep telling myself that it wasn't me," she blubbered, "and that it wasn't you. But it could have been! It could have been, and I don't-I don't know how to deal with that!"

Tears started welling up in his own eyes, making her face blur before him.

"And I don't want to start falling apart, but I'm scared of meeting him, I'm scared he'll look like you, I'm scared I won't be able to think of you the same way again."

He rubbed his face angrily and took her by the shoulders.

"Whatever happened here, it was about as different from the world we know as you can possibly get! I'm still convinced that Vol-You-Know-Who did something to change me. There's just-there's no way that I'd become a monster like that!"

He held her for a few minutes, and slowly, her tears started to abate.

"This other version of me, the one with us. I can see how he became like he is. Hell, I could picture myself going down the same road. But this monster? No way. Not naturally. I can't believe it."

She didn't say a word, just allowed him to hold her trembling body.

"You know what the last thought that went through my mind was?" he asked, "all those years ago, when I let him kill me?"

He waited a second before going on.

"It was you. I was willing to die to keep you safe. And I still would be."

She breathed in sharply at that, making a hissing noise as she did.

"I'm not planning on it," he hurriedly added, forestalling any comment, "I really don't want to, in fact. I meant what I said, love. I'm not here to save this world and everyone in it. I just want to get us home safely. That's all. I'll take everyone from here who wants to go, god knows we'll need their help, but I'm not fighting another damned war."

"If you do, you'll never stop having nightmares."

"I don't think we're gonna escape those," he said with a shudder. "I'm just glad the kids weren't with us."

She tightened her grip on him, her fingers squeezing into his back.

"Do you think they're ok?" She asked in a wavering voice, "Honestly? That they're not going crazy?"

"Ginny. They're fine. James is probably freaking out, but Cindy will be the mature one and find a way to keep him calm. I guarantee you, they'll end up staying at Ted's for a few days. Albus is probably with your mother or Scorpius, and ten to one Lily's with him. They're fine."

"Do you really think so? If I was them, and-"

"Ginny, please. Please. I just-I can't think about that now. I just can't. Not if I want to stay focused. It's hard enough as it is."

She shoved her face into his shoulder, crying again.

"I want to go home. I don't want to be in this fucking nightmare anymore!"

He held her tightly, tears finally breaking through his self-control, making trails down his cheeks.

"Same here, love. Same here."


Hermione Potter

"Harry?" She asked hesitantly, "are you...feeling all right?"

He looked at her, and she knew just from his eyes that she was about to be blatantly lied to.

"As well as can be, I guess. It's a bit of a shock, all of this,"

"Understatement of the millennium," she muttered.

"But I'm fine," he continued. "This is just another shitty situation, and in a few days, we'll be home and laughing about it."

"Harry. Love. It's me. Be honest."

His eyes skittered away from her, dancing around the room.

She noticed his fingers curling into a fist and then spreading out, a nervous tic he'd never really managed to gain control of.

"I am," he said. "It's ok, Hermione. I'm fine."

"You've seemed a bit...aggressive," she said gently, "more than a bit. Are you really sure you're fine?"

His eyes landed on her. Suddenly, he seemed far weaker than he had a few seconds before.

He dropped into one of the chairs with a thump.

"It's all coming back, Hermione. All of it."

"What is?" She asked, still speaking in that same soft, soothing voice.

She'd learned how to do that, just as Harry had learned how to calm her down.

It was a necessity to learn such things, for those who wanted to survive in a sane world after fighting a war.

"All of it. Everything I felt after he died. All of the guilt, the self-loathing. All of the rage. It's all coming back."

He lashed out suddenly, denting the wall with a punch.

Dusty plaster rained down.

She didn't say anything. Let it out and you'll feel better, that's what she'd always believed.

"Seeing him, seeing that I could have fucking saved him, that I should have, that everything would have just been so much better. That I would have been so much better. That you'd have been happier with him. How am I meant to do this? How am I fucking meant to fight and make decisions without losing control?"

He dropped his head into his hands and shook, mumbling disconnected words.

"Harry. There's nothing I can say that I haven't already said, a thousand times over. You can't blame yourself. You can't. Hell, even Ron, our Ron, even he didn't blame you!"

Harry didn't answer, but his mumbling did stop.

'Good. At least he's listening this time.'

"And maybe, if Ron would have lived, I'd have ended up with him. Maybe. Who knows what would have been? If you start thinking in maybes, you'll never get anywhere. Maybe if I hadn't broken up with Viktor...Maybe if I'd just let the Sorting Hat put me in Ravenclaw...maybe, maybe, maybe. Who the hell knows?"

"You'd have been happier with him," Harry said, still not looking up, "you would have."

"I don't think it's at all possible for me to be happier than I have for the last thirty years."

'Liar.'

She ignored that thought, flicking her head and continuing.

"I wish that Ron would have lived. But I wouldn't sacrifice this time we've had for anything."

But the voice in her head just repeated its spiteful word.

'Liar.'

Slowly, his shaking abated.

"I know all that," he said, finally looking up and revealing a tear streaked face, "but I don't feel it. I know it in my head. Not in my heart."

"Then all you can do is keep reminding yourself of what you know to be true."

"I just want to get-to get out of here. It's driving me mad, Hermione. It's-I can't keep in control. All the rage, the aggressiveness. It's all coming out."

"It always does, though," she said, hiding her anxious frustration, "whenever you have to fight and you're more emotional than usual, doesn't it?"

Harry laughed, giving off an absolutely humourless sound.

"Yeah. But usually, I can control it. Usually, I'm not in situations like this fucking mess! Everything about this is just shaking whatever control I have. I'm scared I'm gonna lose it, Hermione. If I lose control..."

Hermione shivered. She knew all too well what could happen if Harry went into an absolute rage.

She knew that she'd be safe, no matter what. The other travellers, they probably would be as well.

But Harry would do things he'd later regret.

"I'll be watching for that," she said, "I'll make sure that you don't. But you need to do whatever you can. The breathing exercises, the mind-clearing. Everything you can do."

"I will. As difficult as it is, I will. But I can't limit the spells I'm going to be using. I just can't, not in this type of situation."

She hesitated, biting back her denial.

He was right. As much as it would push him further toward losing control, he couldn't limit his repertoire. Not if they wanted to survive this.

"At least try avoiding the Unforgivables," she asked, managing to hold back from downright begging. "If there's any other option."

"I-I'll try. But you know what it's like."

That she did.

It was a not so well-known fact. The Unforgivables weren't punished so harshly just because of their results.

The more often one used them, the less in control of their emotions they became. It took time, and plenty of use, but slowly, they warped people, pushing them into a furious rage far more regularly, with often deadly results.

Worse, the more one used them, the easier it was to use them. At first, you needed to truly mean it, to actually feel a burning hatred or a terrible desire to inflict pain.

After a while, you needed nothing more than to say the words.

You'd still be feeling the same emotions, the rage, and loathing. You just wouldn't consciously experience them. But the feelings were still there, twisting your actions down terrible paths you'd otherwise never dare tread.

They'd only even learned this a few years after the war. By then, she'd taken a research position in the Department, and had no need for them.

Harry, on the other hand, was still occasionally forced to use them.

Oh, he'd learned to control his emotions, for the most part. It had been a major reason for him to go back to Severus and beg for Occlumency lessons.

Still, they affected him. Particularly when he was suffering from strong emotions in the first place.

She couldn't think of any situation that would bring up stronger emotions than the one they were currently in.

The problem still remained; Unforgivable or not, incredibly dangerous or not, they were too damn useful to reject out of hand.

"I know," she said softly, moving toward him, "but you'll do what you can. And I'll do what can. No one could expect more than that."

"I love you, Hermione. I'd be-I'd be totally lost without you."

"You think I'd manage without you?" She asked softly.

The voice in her head, though, had a definitive answer. And it wasn't one that would do Harry any good to hear.

'Liar.'


Harry Potter, Head of Task Force UX32.

It was beyond strange, seeing Luna's house.

It was almost exactly the same as in Harry's world.

Three small signs, one announcing the residence of the Lovegood and Scamander family, one warning people to keep off of the Dirigible Plums, and one allowing people to pick their own mistletoe.

In his world, however, there had been a sign about the Quibbler.

Whatever else happened here, it appeared that Luna hadn't kept up her father's paper.

'Of course, idiot. Voldemort wouldn't let there be any news that he wasn't controlling.'

"Remind me again why we had to come so early?" Ron asked.

He managed to keep from wincing, managed to prevent any sign of the inner turmoil Ron's voice caused from showing on his face.

Interestingly enough, his counterpart answered before he could.

"Because there'll be fewer people around to spot us, and whoever they've got watching for Apparation or trying to track us is probably half asleep and not concentrating fully. It's our best chance."

"Does mean we'll be waking Luna up though," Ron answered, "and with so few people around, it makes us far more noticeable."

"Good thing we haven't seen anyone," Harry said. He kept his voice down, nevertheless.

There may not be anyone around, but in the countryside, voices carried far more than in the city. Particularly in the quiet hours of the day.

He hesitated in front of the door.

"Try to keep in mind, Harry," Severus said, "This is not our Luna. She may very well be frightened, particularly of the two of you and me."

"I know, I know. So we need to convince her as soon as possible. Then either bring her back to our place or wherever she suggests."

"It'll work," the other him said, sounding confident, "Luna will believe it if there's anyone who would."

Hermione gripped his hand and squeezed.

He breathed in deeply, holding it for a moment before exhaling with a sound like steam escaping a kettle.

"Here goes nothing." He muttered and rapped his knuckles sharply on the door a few times.

After a few minutes of waiting, he raised his hand to knock again.

And they heard Luna calling from inside the house.

"Just a minute. I'm on the way, hold on, please."

He steeled himself, trying not to crush Hermione's hand in his, as footsteps drew nearer to the door.

They heard a key turning and latch being pulled back.

The door opened, and Luna stood there.

She looked almost exactly the same as the Luna from Harry's world.

Her face was far more lined, and there was more grey in her hair, but she still had a sense of mistiness that Harry's Luna carried around with her.

They definitely had woken her up. Her hair was tousled from sleep, and she wore a nightgown with a copy of the Daily Prophet and her wand stuck through the belt.

She took one look at him and paled, her eyes widening.

"I'm not the Harry you know," he said quickly, almost desperately, "please, listen, we-"

Her eyes shot around the group and landed on Ginny.

With a small sigh, Luna fainted, falling into her house and landing on her back with a thud.

Another voice called from within the house.

"Luna? Who is it?"

'Is that Rolf?'

Before any of them could think of something to say, Rolf came into view.

"Luna!"

Rolf ran to her and fell to his knees, looking up at them with a pleading, terrified expression.

His gaze flitted between Severus and Harry as he spoke, barely seeming to even take any of the others in.

"Please-please-we-we haven't done anything wrong!"

"We didn't do anything! We didn't! Luna-She fainted from shock, and-"

"You!" Rolf cried, finally having paid enough attention to notice the rest of them. "You're-you're wanted!"

"Listen to me! We don't have lots of time, they might be tracking us!"

"Why did you come here then?!"

"We have nowhere else to go! This is going to sound insane, but I swear it's true. We came here from another world."

Rolf's jaw dropped, but he didn't laugh.

Instead, he looked over to the Hermiones, Ron, and Ginny.

"Luna was sure it was-it was you. She thought she-she thought that she was going mad. This is impossible. Impossible."

"Please," Harry said, "can we come in?"

Rolf's uncertainty was visible on his face. He looked over at Severus, Harry, and his alternate, his throat working as if he wanted to talk.

"We're not the Harry Potter you know," the other Harry said, "I swear it. In our worlds, we fought against You-Know-Who. We won. I swear."

Severus walked forward, pulling his left sleeve up.

"Look," he all but whispered, "no Mark. In our world, I was a spy against him. And the Mark vanished once he finally died."

"Give me your wands," Rolf said, "and let's talk."

It felt like he was cutting off his own arm when Harry handed over his wand to Rolf.

He knew him, liked him even. But the Rolf Scamander he knew was from a different world.

Once the door was closed behind them, Rolf hit Luna with an Ennervate.

She came to immediately, blinking up at them from the floor.

"Who-who are you?" she asked in a trembling voice, "This isn't funny, you know!"

"Luna," Rolf said weakly, "I think we should listen to them. Just let them talk."

"No," Luna said, shaking her head and blinking away tears as she slowly got to her feet, "this isn't funny! Get out of my house! The Director said that you people weren't to torment me, so-"

"Please, Luna," Hermione said, "just listen! We came here from another world!"

Luna's lip peeled back from her teeth and she raised a trembling hand, a finger outstretched.

"That's absurd! I don't know what you're trying to get out of this, but-"

"I'm Harry Potter, and so is he," Harry gestured at his alternate, "Look at our wands, two of them are exactly the same! In our world, Luna, we're friends! More than friends, you helped us kill Vold-You-Know-Who!"

Luna's hand fell limply by her side.

"Hermione-both of them, they were working for the Department of Mysteries, in our different worlds, and they were studying this thing that could travel between worlds. They must be studying it here too, because our devices just went off, and we all ended up here. I swear, Luna. I swear I'm telling the truth."

Luna looked over at Ginny, her face paling as she did so.

"We-we went to see what was going on, in Diagon," Harry said, speaking through a sudden blockage in his throat, "and we found-that-that fucking place. And the Death Eaters, they came in and saw Severus, they thought he was the one from here. So we had a fight and-we captured some of them. And the info we got from Crabbe suggested that you might be willing to help us."

Her eyes flitted back to him.

"Help you?"

"We just-we want to go home. And we'll take whoever's interested in leaving this hellhole of a world."

She kept her eyes focused on him for a moment.

Then, with a sudden movement that had Harry reaching for a wand that wasn't there, she jumped on Ginny.

Luna grabbed her in a tight embrace and started crying into the other woman's shoulder.

"It's you-it's you, it's you, and they made me watch, and you're here, and it's you, you're alive!"

Rolf reached over and clasped her shoulder, murmuring something that Harry couldn't make out.

Luna stayed in that position for a minute before letting go of Ginny.

She closed her eyes tight, and when she opened them, she looked far more present, more in-focus.

Something tightened around her eyes, and suddenly she seemed far more dangerous than she had a few minutes previously.

"Rolf," she said, turning to him, and her voice carried iron behind it, "set up the proximity alerts and the screen."

Rolf walked off.

Luna faced the group again.

"Let's talk, then."


Harry Potter, Director of the Death Eaters.

Harry woke up to the sound of someone knocking at his door.

He groaned, turning over.

By the time he and Daphne had gotten to bed the previous night, it had been close to two in the morning.

And he did not feel like it had been long since then.

'If this isn't important, I'm going to rip that bitch's throat out.'

"What?" He called, coughing as he did.

"I'm sorry, Master, I'm sorry, but you said to wake you up if anyone came from Master's work. Please-"

He sat bolt-upright, energy rushing into him.

"Send them in. You won't be punished for this."

"Thank you, Master," Angie said tearfully, "Master is too kind, th-"

"NOW!"

He could hear her running, as Daphne turned over in bed.

"What did the bitch do this time?" She asked sleepily.

"There's someone here from work. They're coming in."

"What time is it?" She asked, stifling a yawn as she slowly sat up.

He looked over at the clock.

"Five-fifteen."

"Fuck, this better be important."

He threw a pair of pants on.

"It will be. They know better, otherwise."

Someone knocked tentatively at the door.

Daphne finished putting a robe on and nodded.

"Come in!"

Blaise walked in.

"Signs of Apparition," he said, without preamble, "maybe half an hour ago. They've started tracking, should have something within fifteen to twenty minutes."

Harry dropped the shoe he was about to put on.

"Get everyone," he rasped, "everyone on active duty. Call in Raymond, get him to have two squads ready. Fuck, we need everyone available."

"I've started in that," Blaise said, "Raymond's busy with that now. I left Carter gathering up our men."

Harry smiled grimly.

"We'll be at headquarters in five," he said, "let's get ready to catch these fuckers."


Harry Potter, Chief Auror.

As predicted, Luna and Rolf seemed to be taking it in stride.

"So in neither of your worlds did you side with him?" She asked, looking at the two Harry Potters, "and in both of them he lost?"

Harry nodded.

Ginny sat next to Luna. Luna had been unwilling to let go of Ginny's hand, once they entered the living room.

He sipped the tea, as Luna carried on.

"And-your worlds. They're normal? None of this muggle slavery and genocide?"

"We never went to war with muggles," Hermione said, "it's ridiculous! We're working towards getting rid of the Statute of Secrecy and partnering with them, not attacking them!"

One of the muggles made a sound at that, some shocked exclamation.

Luna nodded.

"He never-in our worlds, he never spread his influence past Britain. Not really. Definitely not to the US."

"Here," Rolf said morosely, "he gained control of the rest of Europe before he even took Britain."

"We would need to get this device from the Department of Mysteries, in order to travel to one of your worlds?" Luna asked.

"Yes," The other Hermione said, "I have no idea which of our worlds it'll send us to, if it doesn't send us somewhere else or bring other people here, but we need it. It's the only way I know of."

"Impossible," Rolf said, "or the next best thing. Rookwood runs that place with an iron fist. No one unauthorized is getting in there."

"In our world, we were told the same about capturing Bellatrix," the other Harry said, looking at Hermione, "But we managed. If we could get hold of Rookwood..."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," Harry said, glaring at his alternate, "we need to try and meet the rebels. Do you know how we can contact them?"

Luna pursed her lips but said nothing.

"Luna, I swear, we're-"

He was interrupted by a buzzing sound like a mosquito had somehow burrowed into his ear canal.

Rolf and Luna looked at each other in alarm.

"What is that?" Hermione asked.

"Proximity alarms," Rolf said, clenching his jaw. "Looks like we've got company coming."

"They can't have tracked our apparition already," Harry said, "it's-"

"YOU APPARATED HERE?!" Luna shouted, jumping to her feet, "IDIOTS! THEY CAN TRACK IT!"

"But it takes an hour, at least!"

She shook her head frantically.

Beside her, Rolf was waving his wand through a complex series of movements.

Out of nowhere, a T.V. screen appeared, floating in mid-air.

Rolf jabbed his wand toward it, and images appeared.

"How did-"

"Not now," he growled, staring at the screen intently.

On it, they could see groups of people appearing at the edge of Luna's garden.

Most of them wearing black robes with see-through patches on their sleeves.

"Oh god, oh god, it's them. Fuck. He's here, Luna. He's here."

"You-Know-Who's here?" The other Harry asked, his body tensing.

Rolf shook his head, not taking his eyes off of the screen.

"No. Director Potter."

"Rolf," Luna said, pulling his attention away, "take them down. Hide. I'll deal with the questions."

As she spoke, she waved her wand, making a greyish coat fly onto her.

Another wave of her wand turned it invisible.

Rolf went ashen.

"Luna, are-are you sure?"

She reached over and took her husband's hand.

"Over a thousand lives are relying on them not getting information from me. And if I have to die, I'm taking as many of them with me as I can."

"Is that an explosive jacket?" Hermione asked shrilly.

Luna ignored her. She kissed Rolf and whispered something to him.

"Go. Hide. Hopefully, I can get them away."

"Luna," Harry started.

She pointed at the screen.

On it, someone who looked a hell of a lot like him was addressing the assembled witches and wizards.

"Go now. Go!"

Rolf waved his wand again, and the screen disappeared.

"I love you. With all my heart."

He gestured for them to follow.

They walked with him, going downstairs into the cellar.

"The entrance to the Rookery's bunker is located in the cellar."

As he spoke, a weight settled into Harry's mind.

Suddenly, a large metal door appeared, pushing against the walls beside it as it grew from the ground.

One of the muggles whispered as Rolf stepped toward it, drawing his wand across his palm as he did so.

From upstairs, the sound of someone knocking at the door came.

Rolf rubbed his bloody hand against the door, muttering something as he did so.

It opened onto a dark room, right as they heard Luna calling.

"Just a minute. I'm coming, just a minute."

"Inside," Rolf said, pointing to the room behind the door, "now!"

They walked into the darkness.


Harry Potter, Director of the Death Eaters.

Luna sat before him on a couch in her living room, trembling.

A part of him hoped that she wouldn't force him to break her.

Another part hoped that she would.

He stood in front of her, staring into her deliciously terrified eyes.

"I've always been good to you, haven't I?"

"You-you have."

"Never gave you the punishments your traitor friends should have brought onto you. Ignored your little indiscretions, brushed them away. Yeah, I've always been fucking good to you."

She stayed silent.

"So why do you treat me like this? Why, Luna?"

"I don't know what-"

"You don't know?" He asked incredulously, cutting her sentence in two, "you don't know? Should I have Lorcan and Lysander brought in from Peru? Will having your sons here help you know?"

Internally, he could help but laugh at the way she started crying, just at the mention of her sons' names.

And his casual mention of their current location.

"Yes, Luna. I know where they are. I'm the fucking Director, I know most things. So why do you try to hide things from me? Don't you want me to be your friend anymore?"

"I'm not hiding anything," she said in a tiny voice, "I'm not."

"You're not?"

He took a step toward her, rolling his wand between his fingers.

"See, Luna, something tells me that you are. Where are they, Luna? Where?"

"Who?" She whispered.

He ran his wand down her cheek, from the corner of her eye to her mouth.

"I think you would have recognized them. Your old friends, Luna. Traitors. We know they came here. Now. Where. Are. They?"

Luna's eyes widened, as her mouth began to shake.

"They-they-they were real?"

"You know as well as I do that they're fucking real."

"I thought they weren't. I-I-I thought I was imagining them!"

"Looney Luna Lovegood," He hissed, "don't lie to me, Luna. Don't you fucking try it."

"I'm not! I'm not! I see them all the time, I thought-"

Luna began to sob, her whole body shaking.

"I thought they weren't real," she wailed, "I closed the door on them and lay down on the couch!"

He pulled his wand away from her face, looking down at her with a frown.

Then he sighed and focused on his connection to Daphne and Bellona.

'Bring them in.'

Almost immediately, the front door opened again.

"We're checking anyway, Luna," he said roughly. "And if you're lying to me...well, you remember what happened to Ginny, don't you?"

Luna began to wail harder, reaching up to pull at her hair.

He slapped her hand away.

"None of that. Control yourself. For fuck's sake, stop acting like a crazy bitch for five minutes."

He didn't look away from her, as people crowded the room.

"Check everywhere. The entire fucking place."


Harry Potter, Head of Task Force UX32.

He couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen. God help him, but he couldn't stop watching this monstrosity.

"That's not me," he heard the other Harry saying, "no way."

It wasn't. And yet, it was.

Behind the glowing red eyes, behind the shrunken nose and twisted, scarred face, he kept catching glimpses of himself.

He kept hearing his voice, in that creature's disgusting words.

It wasn't him.

And yet, it could have been.

He finally managed to move his eyes from it, his gorge rising, and he met Rolf's gaze.

"You really are nothing like him," Rolf said wonderingly, "nothing at all."

"That-that thing isn't-isn't me."

"Not in the slightest," Hermione said fiercely.

"Well, Luna. It seems you weren't lying after all."

He turned back to the screen, to see his counterpart standing next to Luna with a sour expression.

"I swear, I wasn't."

"Lucky you, I guess. Everyone, out!"

Slowly, the Death Eaters started leaving the house.

Behind him, one of the muggles started whispering some prayer.

"Just make sure that I don't have to visit you again, Luna. You won't want that. I'd rather we stay friends."

He ignored his Auror counterpart's muttered denials, focused intently on the screen.

There, Luna was shaking her head.

"And if they come back, you'll let us know right away, hey?"

"I-I will."

The him from this world smiled, patting Luna on the head.

"Good girl. Bye, Luna."

She didn't respond, just stayed sitting silently until he'd left the room.

"So now-"

"Now we wait," Rolf said, "for Luna to come down here. She'll give it a few minutes, then go make sure there's none of them hiding in the house. Then we can talk."

Harry stretched his arms and looked around, full of the need to distract himself from what he'd just seen.

"This place is pretty impressive. How long did it take you guys to build?"

Honestly, it was incredible. Just from a cursory look at the walls and roof, he could see that they were at least as thick as his fist. They seemed to be layered in Runes and Wards, making a shimmery spider web of barely visible protective enchantments.

Rolf was still staring intently at the screen when he answered, tapping it with his wand every few moments and making it show a different room in the house.

"All in all, about five years. The actual building and Warding should have taken under a year, but we had to go very slowly. Didn't want to attract any attention."

Harry whistled, looking around again.

He'd always known Luna was talented. Hell, he'd seen her fight.

But this was the type of thing he'd expect from the Ministry, not from a couple who had to hide the fact that they were building it.

"How much food do you guys have here?"

"Probably about six months' worth. One of those cupboards is under Freezing and Statis Charms, and we've got a bunch of dried and canned goods."

Harry whistled again.

"You-If need be, we could hide you here for a while," Rolf said, finally turning around. "We've done it before. Just until we can get you to a safer location."

That got everyone's attention, making other Hermione and Ron dropping their whispered conversation.

"Where's safer?" The other him asked.

Rolf looked around at them.

"We can get you to the rebels. If you-if you really killed the Emperor, even in other worlds. God, what that can do for us, what it could do for morale...People are afraid, talking about giving up. Just knowing that it's possible, that we can beat him-"

His alternate shook his head. "I don't think it'll be possible here. The world's very different. In our world, he only controlled Britain. And even then, there were plenty of people fighting."

"You can't tell them that," Rolf hissed, "It'll-"

"We can take them with us," Harry quickly said, ignoring his alternate's thankful glance. "We can't fight everyone. But if we find out how to leave, we can take everyone who wants to go with to a world where he's been dead for thirty years."

Rolf didn't say anything, only kept moving his gaze between the two versions of Harry.

"Kidnapping Rookwood and then getting into the Department of Mysteries will be hard," Auror Harry said, "but it'll be easier than killing You-Know-Who and his army."

Slowly, Rolf nodded.

"Let's wait for Luna," he said, "we'll figure this out together."


Harry Potter, Director of the Death Eaters.

He stood on the crest of a small hill, looking at the house.

"Sir? Anti-Apparition and Anti-Portkey charms are up, and we've cut them off from the Floo."

A small smile spread across his face.

Lie to him, would she?

"Excellent, Franklin. Excellent. What else?"

"The military squads are in position. We've been searching, but so far no sign of them having gone on foot or broom. We-we've discovered some underground tunnels, leading from the house. There doesn't seem to be anyone in them at the moment."

He wished he could see the reactions. The moment they realized all avenues of escape were cut off.

"Destroy them. And tell the men that for now, we wait. We'll give them a chance to surrender properly."

Out the corner of his eye, he caught Franklin bowing.

"Yes, sir."

Daphne walked up to him.

"So we wait?"

"One last chance. I'll call them out in ten minutes. And if they don't come, we go in."

"It'll be a bloodbath."

He took her hand in his.

"Exciting, isn't it?"


Harry Potter, Chief Auror.

The sound of the explosion tore through the bunker.

It was well-built enough that it barely even shook, but they still rocked.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?"

His alternate's shout could barely be heard over the clamour of voices.

Rolf didn't reply. He started waving his wand at the screen again, a franticness evident in his movements that hadn't been there earlier.

"Oh, fuck."

Somehow, Rolf's quiet words cut through the hubbub.

Harry looked to the screen, fearing what he'd see.

It showed the outside of the Rookery.

And clearly, though they'd left the house, the Death Eaters hadn't called it a day and gone home

There were easily fifty of them, ranged around the property.

A few of them stood above an enormous crater in the ground, talking amongst themselves.

Luna burst through the door. "Rolf, was that-"

"It was," he said with a quiet despondency, "they found the tunnels. They've taken them out."

"Floo's gone," Luna said, "so's Apparition. Portkeys' probably are as well."

"They're waiting for us to come out," Harry said, speaking as soon as he realized what was going on, "they don't want a fight in here."

"We can hold out in here though, can't we?" Hermione asked, an edge of panic hanging on her words "with all the food? They can't get in, can they?"

Luna closed her eyes.

"If they get tired of waiting, they'll let loose Fiendfyre. They'll flush us out that way."

One of the muggles started crying, their sobbing filling the shocked silence.

Harry felt like he was watching from a distance, as he tried to come up with something, some plan to save them all.

But nothing came to mind.

"We fight our way out," his alternate said grimly, "that's our only choice."

Harry quickly ran his eyes around the silent room, noting the stunned realization appearing on all the faces there.

'He's right,' he thought, with a feeling like a block of ice had been dropped into his groin, 'damnit, but he's right.'

"We're completely outnumbered," Ron said, "and they've got us surrounded. How the hell do you plan on fighting that?"

"We still have a few tricks up our sleeves," Luna announced, a terrible smile that Harry had never before seen her wear starting to spread across her cheeks. "And if any of you," she nodded at Harry, his counterpart, and Snape there, "are as good as the versions of you here, we might have a chance. But someone will need to take down those Anti-Apparation Charms."

"I'll do it," Hermione said quickly. "If you guys can protect me, I'll have them down soon."

Luna eyed her for a moment before nodding.

"The Hermione I knew, she could-"

She abruptly cut off her sentence, blinking her eyes furiously and shaking her head.

"Standard practice for them is to have two people holding those Charms in a fight. One backup in case the first one falls. You won't get anywhere until they're dead."

"As soon as you can," she continued, "you need to Apparate out of here. You need to head to the Culloden Forest, near Inverness."

"Do it with as many stops as you can," Rolf advised, "at least five or six. Makes it harder for them to track."

"When you get there," Luna said, "find the wishing well. Tap it three times with your wand, and say that the Knights sent you. Tell them how many of you there are, and that the password-"

She cut off, darting her eyes to Ginny before swallowing and looking down.

Rolf placed a trembling hand on her shoulder and continued. "The password is Ginevra. They'll come and fetch you. Either with brooms or Thestrals. And they'll blindfold you. When you arrive, they'll stun you, take your wands, and take you into headquarters. You will be questioned."

"Stun us? Not a-"

"Shut up and listen," Rolf said, freezing Harry's counterpart with a glare. "We're not telling you the Secret. So-"

"You can tell us," he said, "we-"

"They've been working on a way to break the Fidelius," Luna said, "they don't have it yet, but we can't take that risk."

Right then, a horrible voice sounded around the room. It came from the very walls, shocking Harry out of his seat and making Luna drop to her knees.

It was his own voice, magnified much the same way Voldemort's had once been.

"You shouldn't have lied to me, Luna. Last chance, all of you. Come out quietly, and maybe you'll live. Make us come in there, and we'll see how long it takes for you to die. You have five minutes."

He felt Ginny clutching his arm, saw the other Hermione grabbing his counterpart's shoulders.

He closed his eyes, waiting for the echoes to die down.

"Right," Rolf said, turning to the muggles, "Do any of you know how to shoot a gun?"

One of them, an older man, raised his hand hesitantly.

Rolf sighed.

"All of you are going to have to learn. Just point at a bad guy and pull the trigger. That's all you can do."

"I don't want to fight," one of them cried, tears running down his face, "Please, Master, please can-"

"No. If you want to even maybe live, you'll do this. Come."

The muggles followed him over to one of the cabinets. He opened it, revealing a rack of sleek looking handguns.

He saw the muggle girl who had begged them to protect her sister walking up to his counterpart and saying something.

He turned away from the others, leaning over to Ginny.

"No escaping the nightmares, huh?"

She laughed and covered her mouth, looking shocked.

"I love you," he said, suddenly feeling an urgent need to announce it. "I just-"

She kissed him, trapping his words in his mouth.

It wasn't the best kiss they'd shared. He was shaking with adrenaline, fear beginning to turn his innards into snakes, and her face was wet with tears.

It wasn't the best, but it was all they had time for.

"Come on," Luna called, tearing them out of their embrace, "we need to get moving. And we'll need to activate the defences from the entrance hall."

With no further conversation, they left the bunker, departing from its false promise of safety.


Harry Potter, Director of the Death Eaters.

"Ok, on my mark, I want squad A moving in. In three, two-"

A heartbeat before he reached one, two overlapping voices shouted out something from the house.

He whipped his head around, staring at the front door.

"Was that an incantation?"

He started turning back to his men, but movement caught his eye.

Large shimmering patches were moving, all around the walls of Luna's house.

As he watched, they began to tear themselves out of the walls and jump down.

It was one of the oddest things he'd ever seen, like watching a drawing on a piece of paper come to life and become three-dimensional.

At least ten of them, all in monstrous gargoyle shapes.

At the same time, a huge black funnel cloud appeared behind the house, rising into the air.

He only just managed to make out the shining beaks and cruel talons of thousands of birds, when the front door opened.

And all hell broke loose.

The intruders burst out of the house, along with Luna, Rolf, and the muggles.

All the muggles seemed to be wielding guns, most of them looking like they barely knew how to hold the damn things.

At the same time, the gargoyles started running forward, directly at the main group of Death Eaters.

The birds all screeched as one, and dived down, a cloud of death flying straight for him.

"FIENDFYRE!" He shouted, casting the monstrous flames into the air.

The birds screeched even louder, twisting and jerking to the sides and avoiding his fiery creations.

"TAKE CARE OF THE BIRDS," He shouted to his men behind him, "AND THEN CAPTURE THESE FUCKERS ALIVE!"

He stopped feeding the curse, allowed the Fiendfyre to grow no larger.

And he cast it forward, mentally directing it to attack the gargoyles now loping over the grass toward him.

He wouldn't be able to concentrate on it for too long, not if he wanted to fight the intruders as well.

He was good, but no one other than the Dark Lord was capable of such a feat.

A spell passed just over his head, its wind blowing his hair back.

He grimaced, casting a Shield Charm around him. It wouldn't block any powerful spells, and wouldn't stand up to too many bullets if the muggles actually managed to use those guns, but it did allow him some level of protection and greater manoeuvrability than the other options would.

Within seconds of casting it, some curse hit his shield, throwing up lines of blue light as it refracted.

Shouts and pained screams from behind him told him that his men were still fighting the birds.

He heard Franklin screaming that he was blind, a pained shriek that abruptly ended with a sickly wet sound.

His wand began to grow warm.

He ended the Fiendfyre, spinning around immediately as he did so.

He only caught a brief glance of his men. There seemed to be far less of those birds, but a lot of his fighters were down.

The birds that still remained were attacking, flying at the Death Eaters' faces and hands, sharp claws attacking eyes and throats.

In the moment that he watched, he saw a bird curl its talons around someone's jugular and rip it out, sending their lifeblood gushing out.

He heard Daphne shouting something and Bella responding, as he turned back to his human enemies.

They'd spread out in a line, one of the alternate versions of him standing ahead of the rest of them.

Most of them looked to be attacking his men, flinging curses and hexes wildly.

He saw one of the muggles raising a gun, clearly aiming at him.

He snarled, snapping his wand upward sharply, making the muggle's gun fly out of its hand and into its face, hard enough to bend the metal out of shape.

As it fell to the floor, he spun his wand blocking a curse the other version of him had sent at him.

He trained his wand on another muggle with a gun.

"INTESTINUS ERUPTO!"

The muggle's belly exploded, its blood and intestines bursting out and splattering the surroundings with gore.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO LIE TO ME, LUNA! I FUCKING TOLD YOU!"

Luna cringed at his shout, interrupting whatever she had been about to cast.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

He just managed to raise a stone pillar to block the Killing Curse. It shattered, and with a contemptuous flick of his wrist, he multiplied the shards and shot them at his alternate.

Who then Transfigured them into daggers and sent them right back at him.

He laughed as loudly as he could, waving his wand and conjuring a gale-force wind to knock them aside.

"I thought you'd be better than that," he called, "if you really were me, you would be."

"I'M NOTHING LIKE YOU!"

The other him sent a stream of fire.

He laughed again, as he enlarged it and sent it at the others fighting.

The third version of him jumped into the fight, sending a cutting curse with unnerving accuracy.

He just managed to block it, immediately having to turn and deal with the other one's Bludgeoner.

He spun and twisted, his wand spinning incessantly as he fought the other two versions of himself.

He deflected their curses when he could, conjured up shields when he couldn't, and dodged when he had no choice.

Daphne jumped beside him, pulling away one of the Grangers as she was about to join the attack.

One of his alternates got distracted by that, his concentration lapsing for just enough time for Harry to form a pile of earth into a golem and send it at him.

The other one sent some powerful blast of energy at him, strong enough that even with a shield he was knocked back several meters.

He barely managed to get back up before he had to drop again, not having enough time to block the emerald jet hurtling toward him.

By the time he successfully got back to his feet, Blaise had joined the fight and was helping Daphne as they duelled the mudblood and the alternate Snape.

The sounds filtering through from behind him sounded like his men had finished with the birds and were coming to join him.

He blew up the ground in front of his two alternates, pushing them back.

Then he waved his wand like a lasso, pulling back with as much strength as he could.

And he pulled down Luna's fucking house.

Masonry squealed and bricks and stone flew everywhere, as Luna's absurd home came crashing down.

Right then, a group of his men arrived at his right and began attacking his alternates.

Some curse hit Blaise, knocking him flying in front of Harry.

He spun to help Daphne, conjuring enormous hands from the earth that grabbed one of the Grangers and gripped her tight, smashing her into the floor and knocking her unconscious.

"HERMIONE!"

One of his alternates launched himself at her, seeming to forget that he was in the middle of a battle.

With a flick of his wrist, he solidified the air around him, making motion all but impossible.

The alternate Snape jumped forward, wand moving with blinding speed, and that version of Harry was free.

"IT'S DOWN!" The conscious Granger shouted, "NOW, NOW, NOW!"

She spun, Apparating away.

Luna and Rolf each grabbed a muggle as they Apparated.

The version of Harry who'd been trapped was running toward the unconscious Granger, shouting her name.

Before Harry could do anything, Snape grabbed that version of him again and Apparated, taking him along.

Harry shot a golden web from his wand, one which would prevent any form of magical travel.

It flew beautifully, straight for his last remaining alternate.

And Ron fucking Weasley dived forward, knocking the weak version of him out of its path and getting tangled in it himself.

"GO!" He shouted, and the Harry with him obeyed, disappearing with a loud crack.

After maybe fifteen minutes of furious fighting, the battle was over.

He closed his eyes, letting the fragrance of burning corpses wash over him.

Slowly, his heart returned to its normal rhythm, adrenaline dissipating as the thrill of the fight stopped thrumming in his veins.

"How many did we get?" He asked, still keeping his eyes closed while he spoke.

Corey answered, speaking with obvious trepidation.

"Just those two, sir."

He turned around to face him, opening his eyes.

"Just those two. Just those two. We go through all this," he waved a hand, gesturing towards the dozens of dead and injured men around him, "and we only capture two? AND I HAD TO CATCH THEM MYSELF? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU?!"

Daphne put a hand on his arm and leaned over, whispering into his ear.

"Harry, be gentle. Those birds were fucking horrific, and those gargoyles were terrible, as well. Be glad we at least got the two."

He closed his eyes again, breathing deeply.

"Get the injured out of here. I want everyone else searching through that pile of rubble."

"And-and the prisoners, sir?"

He ignored the question, walking over to the golden net where Ron Weasley was trapped.

The ginger's eyes widened when he drew near and began to fill with terror.

It was beyond intoxicating.

"I'll deal with them," he called out.

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