Hello Everyone,

First of all, I would like to apologise for this delay in updating the next chapter. There are a couple of reasons for that.

First and foremost, I have now got a Beta for this story - Teufel1987. So we have been working together to fill the holes in the plot and reviewed the first three chapters. So the previous chapters have all been updated. There are major changes in Chapter three, so please do check it out and give your reviews.

Secondly, this has been a very difficult chapter for me to write as there are some major explanations here. So I hope you will like it and I would really appreciate if you could give me your views on the chapter.

Now that all that has been sorted out the chapters should come in quicker.

Once again I would like to thank Teufel1987 for his patience and hard work. This chapter is dedicated to him.

"Italics" - telepathic conversations or another language.

"normal" - normal dialogue between characters

Chapter Four Explanations II

"Perhaps the best place to start is by telling you our real names. My name in this birth is Harry Potter" revealed Salazar.

This came as a big shock to me, the Potters were a part of the faculty and one of the families that were affected the most in the war. Their son Harry was killed by Voldemort, along with the baby's caretaker for the night and Godmother Marlene McKinnon, all due to a prophecy. But that was not all. Ever since that incident, the Potters did not have a baby again and had thrown themselves to educate the children and protect them in the school. They were joined by Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. Their pain was always shown on their faces and gone were the spark of the pranksters that the three males were. However, I needed more information. If this is Harry Potter, then who are the other three. Harry's generation was the most affected by the massacre that Voldemort had engineered after the Prophecy had been accidently leaked.

I nodded at them, silently asking them to continue. If they noticed my momentary shock they did not say anything but just continued.

"The wizard on the far left is Ron Weasley, the witch to my left is his wife, Hermione Granger, and the beautiful lady on my right, is Ginny Weasley."

The Weasleys! They were another family affected by the massacre but they had lost two of their youngest children and never got over it. The Weasley parents had become overprotective of their other children and close to the Potters. They would often go out together and buy presents for their deceased children on special occasions. Other families had gotten over their grief and had more children but these two families never did.

Voldemort knew this and took special pleasure by attacking them on their shopping trips and torturing them with the Cruciatus as well as taunting them about their children.

And Granger name sounds familiar as well, if I am not wrong then it was one of the Muggle families whose daughter was a witch and thus they were killed along with their daughter.

This is not good. If it is the truth, and these people are who they say they are, then I do not want to think how the Potters and the Weasleys will react. No, this cannot be the truth. These people are either Death Eaters who have disguised themselves to torture those poor souls or fate has once again played a very cruel joke.

But what if these are the people from the Prophecy? No, that cannot be, even if it is, the Potters and the Weasleys will be shattered. But you don't know that! Maybe they will finally overcome their grief, and accept these people as their children. But what if they have to go back? Also how are they so similar to the Founders then? I have to find out more, I cannot let the Potters and Weasleys go through any more pain. They will be deeply affected by this, whether they will react positively or not, remains to be seen. But if I can help it, I will not let this get to them, they will be broken beyond repair. They are only just holding it together, but if they get to know this I do not want to think how they will react. Ahh, but what if this is the truth? Then wouldn't it heal them? Make them better? Well it might but they might not get past the initial reaction of horror.

No I need to find out more, how is this even possible?

"Explain"

"Perhaps the best place to start is by telling you our real names. My name in this birth is Harry Potter" revealed Salazar.

The dark haired wizard paused to observe the reaction to his name. Others were also watching Dumbledore closely and noticed that at the mention of his name, Dumbledore's eyes widened. This was not unusual, but what they saw next was something unexpected for the visitors. Dumbledore's face went grave and his eyes showed deep pain. However, Dumbledore nodded for Harry to go on.

"The wizard on far left is Ron Weasley, the witch to my left is his wife Hermione Granger; and the beautiful lady on my right is Ginny Weasley."

By now Dumbledore's eyes were not only wide but the twinkle was also replaced with a look of pure horror.

It was a few minutes in which Dumbledore's expression varied from horror to shock to anguish to regret to pain to fear to denial to hope again denial and finally settled with a determined look with a hint of hope and curiosity. Finally, when he addressed the founders, his voice was devoid of any emotion.

"Explain"

"I believe that starting at the beginning is the best way to make the situation as simple as possible." Began Rowena Ravenclaw, or, as she was now known, Hermione Granger. "Well, in our world I was born on the nineteenth of September ninety seventy five, Ron here was born on the first of March nineteen eighty , Harry was born on the thirty first of July of the same year and Ginny was born on the eleventh of August in eighty one." At the mention of these dates, Dumbledore's eyes widened in surprise

Before starting Hogwarts, only Ron and Ginny knew each other as they are siblings. Harry, Ron and I met at the Hogwarts express and started Hogwarts together. Ginny joined a year later. The three of us had an adventurous school life to say the least. Ginny had a relatively quiet life. However at the end of our fifth year, the Professor Dumbledore in our world revealed that there was a prophecy which indicated that Harry will be the one to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort." A frown adorned the face of the Headmaster at the mention of this prophecy. It seemed that he wanted to know this prophecy in detail but held his tongue.

"The following year, Dumbledore gave Harry some information to help him in the quest to defeat Voldemort. Apparently we had to search for about four magical objects that Dumbledore thought kept Voldemort alive. But, before the Headmaster could give us more information on how to destroy these objects, he died in the fall of the academic year." Dumbledore shifted slightly upon hearing of the news of his death.

"After the Headmaster's funeral when we went back into the castle to get our belongings and leave for the summer, Hogwarts welcomed us and all four of us fainted." Rowena continued with a fond smile on her face. This expression was mirrored in all four of them.

"The teachers took us to the Hospital wing and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with us and assumed that we were exhausted due to the trauma of losing the Headmaster. When we woke up two days later, we were sent home. We felt different but couldn't figure out what exactly was different, we felt as if our heads were crammed with information that we couldn't decipher. So we all left to go to our respective homes. After a few weeks we managed to understand the information and put it in order. It appeared as if Hogwarts had unlocked our memories of our previous birth."

Rowena paused here to give the Headmaster time to follow the information. She could see from the Headmaster's expression that their dates of birth were of some importance in this world but could not understand what. The other three Founders also noticed the same thing but decided to file the fact for further investigation later. During the entire explanation the Headmaster's expression changed from grave and horror to hope.

Rowena began speaking again "We realised that in our previous birth that we were the Founders of Hogwarts. We remembered every incident of our previous lives. This included our knowledge of magic and other things. What happened had not only unlocked our memories but even changed our bodies to become like the Founders."

Rowena continued after a brief pause with a faraway look on her face "When we met for a few days, we were more comfortable in addressing each other by our former names, as we had recognised each other in our new incarnation. We decide to use our knowledge and skills and focus on the task to save the Wizarding world. We had a mission to complete and had to find those four objects. Thus the three of us could not return to Hogwarts."

"However Ginny could not join us in our quest as she was still underage. She also wanted to be there for the students and do what she can to help them. So while she was at Hogwarts the three of us went to search and destroy these objects by combining our knowledge of our previous birth and the information that Dumbledore provided us. But we needed to go into Hogwarts for the last two objects. However we realised that a war might break out should we attempt to break into Hogwarts. So we managed to communicate with Ginny and we got into full battalion outfits from our previous birth and went to Hogwarts.

"Just as we had anticipated, Voldemort got this information and attacked Hogwarts. While the four of us were busy search for these objects and destroying them, the other students, professors and some … others … were trying to keep the Death Eaters at bay. By the time we finished with our work, the light side had lost more than half of its forces. We joined the fray and within a few minutes gained an upper hand in the battle. When Voldemort saw that his army was losing, he joined in with three of his strongest duellists. By now all the other Death Eaters were killed or captured and it was only the four of us duelling with the four of them. Harry here knew the most about dark arts spells than any of us as he was the reincarnation of Salazar Slytherin. After some fierce exchange the three of us managed to overpower Voldemort's three strongest duellists." Rowena took a deep breath, her gaze far away as she relived that battle.

"But Sal and Voldemort were still duelling." She continued speaking, her voice much softer. "So we decided to aid Sal and created a distraction for Voldemort. The result was that Sal here was able to deal a fatal blow to Voldemort. However what we failed to realise was that during all this something very unique happened." Rowena again paused, her eyes closed. Dumbledore looked deep in thought with a frown on his face. After a few moments he nodded for her to continue.

"We think that—with the combination of the simple, though strong, Darkness of the Killing Curse; the equally straightforward and strong spells from Salazar; the pure emotion of unity, protectiveness and love between the four of us and the intricate variables of the inherently Light-oriented brother Phoenix wands might have created a unique Arithmatical upheaval in the boundaries of time and space, throwing the four of us into an Alternate universe."

Still frowning in thought, Rownea continued. "We saw Voldemort die before darkness surrounded us and the next thing we knew was that we were on the empty grounds of Hogwarts and after a few moments you came out of the main door; and called us the Founders. We knew something very strange had happened so we decided to act as founders at least until we knew it was safe. However after returning to the office, seeing Fawkes and with your explanation we realised that you are indeed Albus Dumbledore. I am sure you understand our point of view, Headmaster."

After completing her explanation, Rowena fell silent and observed the Headmaster's expression to get some idea of his chain of thoughts.

Dumbledore on other hand was in deep thought; he had of course read about Alternate universes. He also knew that there were only a few things that could gather enough energy to create an upheaval strong enough to throw the inhabitants of one dimension into alternate dimension. The combination that Lady Ravenclaw mentioned certainly seemed to have enough potential. Furthermore, the fact that these people addressed Tom as Voldemort rather than the Dark Lord or He Who Must Not Be Named or something equally trivial was enough proof for Dumbledore to know that these people were not the supporters of Voldemort and thus were trustworthy.

The two things that Dumbledore found most interesting were their date of births and the fact that they mentioned that they (especially Salazar Slytherin) defeated Voldemort in their own universe. Maybe they can help to defeat Voldemort here as well? The prophecy did mention that four people will unite to defeat Voldemort and that those four people will be born in the time span of three years.

The exact years that these four were born in.

The prophecy was the reason that there were no students in the Wizarding world who were born in those years. The reason that Hogwarts had no students for those years. Also the reason that the Wizarding World in general had no hope. Is it possible that the prophecy was referring to these individuals rather than the children born in this world? Even if that is not the truth then wouldn't having the four legendary figures fighting from the side of light, uplift the spirits of the general Wizarding population? Yes it would certainly do so. But I will have to tell them what happened in this world to know where the split happened and what are the common things in these two realities. That is not my style, but for the Greater Good it is the only way and I will do it. Maybe it would be better to let the Wizarding World think that they are indeed the Founders and that might also be better for the Potters, Lupin, Black and the Weasleys. Yes, but first I need to offer them some answers and we can decide together. Maybe finally I can share some of the burden of the war with these strong shoulders.