I'd just like to clarify here: I know that things such as Harry's back story aren't explained, and I certainly don't expect you to have deduced anything from what's been said so far, but it's my preferred style of writing. I don't like to spoon feed answers from the get go, I like to let mysteries linger and curiosities grow. You have my apologies, as posting the story a chapter at a time means that an introduction that explained all you needed to know would make the tale more cohesive and clear. But this is the way I want to write, so here we are. Everything will be clarified in due time.

Enjoy.

August 18th, 2003

James Potter tossed and turned in his bed, for the few hours of sleep he could grab before needing to be up in the morning. His workload would be lightened, slightly, with Harry's case being swept under the rug by Dumbledore's influence, but, even so, James needed to get a dozen cases processed in the two days before the weekend. Otherwise, it would be impossible to catch up after the World Cup; the number of cases that came through skyrocketed every time it was in England and James was technically on duty through most of the Weekend, acting as extra security in the campsite, so the majority would fall into his lap.

But he couldn't sleep. He was having nightmares about a long-lost son who had to fight for his life in a world at war. A son of his who fought and killed the most dangerous Dark Wizard in recent history at the age of sixteen. A son who lost two of his limbs, and gained any number of scars- both physical and mental- in the process.

Here and there, James got an hour or less. When Six AM rolled around, he was watching the time tick by, knowing he needed to get some more sleep or he would be exhausted throughout the day. James punched the pillow, and squeezed his eyes shut. He counted sheep, and got up to a hundred and fifty before deciding that this was a stupid method anyway. Then he opened his eyes, and was shocked to see that it was seven fifteen.

He must have fallen asleep, and then dreamt about counting sheep. Bloody hell.

'James!' Lily yelled, panicked, from somewhere in the house.

Harry had spent the last five hours staring at the sky.

He got to see the stars in the sky again, and it seemed almost too good to be true that the sky was without clouds. He didn't know where here was, James had apparated them to the Potter land, but Harry could tell it was far from any cities. St Mungos was in London, and he had barely even been able to see the moon as he wandered the streets in search of shelter. He'd forgotten about light pollution, over the years.

He had been glad to find that the constellations in this world were the same as those in the one he had left.

There were few things in life that held meaning to Harry. The stars in the sky were near the top of the list. Scratch that. They were the list, at the time of his death.

The air was cool, and the conjured thin clothes Harry wore did little to fight the chill. It was a pleasant change to the scorched world on which Harry had endured. Moist air felt far better in his lungs.

Hours passed without thought, as he watched the stars slowly move across the sky. When thoughts did come, they were of a time years before. It had been a thousand nights since that time ended, plus the ones he had not been conscious for. Why he had counted, Harry did not know. He just felt like he should remember her, somehow, for his sanity and for her memory.

She had known nothing about Astronomy, but she'd been insistent that the names she invented were real. When he had laughed at her less thought out attempts, including three separate pidgeon constellations, she had jabbed him in the ribs and told Harry to shut up and what would you know about stars. She, after all, came from a family that was obsessed with naming their kids after stars and constellations. To prove her point, she had pointed out Andromeda and Canine Major, which contained the Dog Star. She'd jabbed him again, when Harry asked when they'd changed the name of Canis Major.

Harry had been thirteen at the time, she had been older. Not much, but older and with the confidence of being able to read him like a picture book. That was good. Harry had gotten his first scars by then, had had the first since before his tenth birthday, despite Remus' and Sirius' attempts to keep him from harm's way. She was the one who had been willing to cuddle up to him, Harry never would have dared. She had been the one to kiss him, Harry never would have thought it.

And then she had been the one to die.

Harry blinked, and the night seemed to pass him by. The stars faded and the moon followed, as the sun turned the sky orange. Harry lay down on the cool grass, and rested for over an hour before sounds beyond the chirping of birds woke him.

When Harry did regain consciousness, it wasn't to feel fear. Nothing of the sort. He wondered, though, why the little girl had come to sit next to him.

The redhead's eyes were as green as Harry's own, and reportedly those of his mother. Harry looked at her curiously, as the six-or-seven year old stared at him with open interest.

'What happened to your face?' She asked, in an inquisitive voice.

'Battlewounds.' Harry answered back, running his right thumb over one of the diagonal scars.

'And your hands?'

'Same.'

'Feet?'

'Yep.'

'Hm,' the girl cupped her chin in an adult expression of thought that, on the girl's slightly chubby cheeks, looked cute, 'you are an anomaly.'

'Am I?' Harry asked, still lying in the grass. He wondered if maybe he should have been worried about the girl… he had a very simplistic view of what was a threat and what wasn't, and little children had never yet fallen into the category.

'You are… curious.'

'I'm curious?'

'Yes.' She nodded firmly. 'Stay very still. I must examine your injuries.' Harry crooked an eyebrow, as the girl jabbed him in the temple with a stubby finger. 'Ow!'

'You okay?' Harry asked, as the girl sucked on her finger with a look of grumpiness. It faded immediately, and she tapped him on the chin this time. She made noise of thought, and then asked Harry a question.

'Do you have a therr… a thermoe… a… a thing to measure how hot things are?' She asked.

'Thermometer? I'm afraid not.' Harry answered, with an appropriate amount of sorrow. She humphed, and then Harry twisted his head as a new person announced their presence.

'Mia!' A girl yelled, urgently. 'Mia, come here!'

'Bye!' The little girl, who must have been called Mia, hopped to her feet and ran towards the house.

Harry couldn't turn to the right angle to see the new person, while on his back, so he sat up and turned. And found a wand pointed at him.

As has been said, Harry had a very simplistic idea of what was a threat and what was not. Death Eaters were a threat, he had been attacked by them time and again. Dark creatures were a threat, and were much more dangerous than the majority of Death Eaters. Anyone or anything that had dealt in Dark Magic could be a threat. Any light wizard who had been through hell could be a threat, if they believed they or their family were in danger. Muggles could be a threat, if they were armed and suspicious of people like Harry.

Teenage girls in pyjamas, in Harry's experience, were not dangerous no matter how angry they may be. So he felt no panic as the pretty girl, with messy black hair and green eyes that were becoming more and more familiar, in this case with bags under them, pointed her wand at him. He felt the need to avoid making any sudden movements, of course, but no panic.

'Who are you?!' she demanded, and Harry's magical eye examined the girl's features. He believed she was James and Lily Potter's daughter, just like Mia.

So James hadn't told them that he would be coming here. Or told them that he existed, most likely, since there weren't many people who had Harry's basic features.

'You should call for your father,' he told her, holding his hands up in a sign that he posed no threat. Of course, her eye then went to the metal hand that had moved and now had its fingers splayed. The girl's tone was slightly frightened as she yelled without turning.

'Dad!' She called, 'DAD!'

'Mary, your dad had a late night! Let him get some sl… oh.' Lily Evans looked the way Harry had imagined. Red hair the colour of Mia's, darker than the Weasleys orange, with bright green eyes that he could see from here. Her beauty explained the attractiveness of the girl before him, and the cute little girl that had vanished inside but was now straining to look around Lily. 'JAMES!'

Lily Potter's voice was loud enough that Harry winced involuntarily, his wolf ears very sensitive to noise. He was still sitting, and wondered when it would be okay to stand. The girl looked tired, and her judgement might be off with the fatigue. It wasn't worth the risk, even if her spells would be jinxes rather than curses.

It sounded like a relatively heavy man tumbled down a flight of stairs inside, and when James Potter arrived he was clutching his ribs with a pained expression that quickly vanished to be replaced by surprise and, in turn, fear.

'Oh, bollocks,' he said, looking at the wand in his daughter's hand. The messy haired, even more so than usual, man reached slowly over her shoulder and plucked the wand from her with two fingers, 'there's no need for that, sweetie. This is your father's… friend. He's not attacking us, don't worry.'

Lily had her arms crossed now, and was staring at James with a look that promised pain. Wisely, her husband opened with an apology as Harry rose to stand.

'I'm really sorry, Lil, but the message came through in the middle of the night. I was on my way back from work, so telling you would have been… he'd done a runner, so I had to get there as soon as I could or we might've lost him.' Lily's look didn't soften, 'And then we were in a meeting with… I mean, he was telling us his story and if I'd ducked out to send a message I just would have woken you up without having all the information… and when I got home I… you just looked so beautiful asleep like that, and I didn't want to ruin such a picturesque moment. I thought that… I mean when I was his age I would've been in bed until noon, I had no idea he'd be… an early riser… I'm sleeping in one of the spare rooms, right?'

'That depends. Who was we, and who were you in a meeting with?' Lily said, in a cross voice.

'Me and Remus… and Sirius and Dumbledore.' James winced as Lily's eyes narrowed, and he rushed to continue, 'But Sirius was barely coherent! I mean, there's no way he'll remember any of it. With what he was doing, and how long it took him to get there… I'm making it worse, aren't I?'

'You are. Did you not think I might want to be there? You told Sirius, and neglected to send a message to me.' Lily glowered.

'It's not like… never mind.'

'No, no, finish your thought! Or should I do it for you?!' James mumbled like a guilty child, and kicked the floor to complete the image. 'You were right, for once, because this isn't the first time you've thought to call Sirius but not your wife. The difference being, this was important. It's like Mia's dance recital all over again!'

'I said I was sorry.'

'Sorry doesn't change the fact that they all thought you were a gay couple! Sorry doesn't change the fact that none of them know who I am, and ask where your partner is every time we go there!'

Harry found that he was struggling to concentrate on what this world's versions of his parents were saying, with two pairs of eyes identical, excluding the blue surrounding his left, to his own watched him. Both had some semblance of curiosity, but only one also dripped with scorn and suspicion.

'Mum? Dad?' two more voices asked, in eery unison, and Harry groaned inside his head. More people to be shocked by him and join in with the staring. Harry won a bet with himself when he found that both had emerald eyes, too. He wouldn't have guessed at brown hair, but there it was.

'Hello, lovely daughters! Your mum was just telling me that we were going shopping for your school things tomorrow! Isn't that great?!' James' attempts to distract the girls, twins Harry was fairly certain, did nothing but make him look silly as he stood there with an excited expression on his face while they stared past him.

'Umm…' one said.

'... who or what is that?' the other finished.

'Girls!' their mother told them off, 'Don't be so rude!'

'We weren't being rude!' the first twin told her, 'He looks just like Cyborg!'

'Who?' the oldest girl, with black hair, asked them.

'Cyborg! From Teen Titans!'

'Oh… right, that superhero show.' she hadn't taken her eyes off Harry in the time, and now went back to staring with full force.

'There's no need to stare at him, girls,' James chuckled without humour, 'he's harmless. Really.'

'Well that was convincing,' his wife said, sarcastically. 'Girls, this is the boy we've been visiting in St Mungos. Remember, we told you about him?'

They all agreed, but the eldest voiced an objection that Harry, too, had been wondering about.

'And you didn't think to mention that he's not human?'

'He is human!' Lily insisted.

'He doesn't look it!' Mia chirped.

'Girls! Just because he looks different doesn't mean you can treat him differently!' James told them, in a voice that almost sounded serious.

'We aren't!' the eldest, who's name Harry still hadn't caught, told him, 'We're treating him differently because he was asleep on the lawn!'

'Well if that's his… choice, then that's his choice! He's staying with us and has the right to sleep outside if he wants to!'

'Why on earth would a robot want to sleep outside?' one of the twin girls asked.

'He's not a robot!' their older sister exclaimed.

'Well what is he, then?' the other asked.

'He's human!' James exclaimed, seeming exasperated with his hands thrown into the air.

'Humans don't sleep outside!'

'It's called camping, brat!' the eldest told the twin who had spoken. They all looked quite similar, and Harry was having trouble keeping track of where words were coming from.

'He doesn't have a tent, fatty!' the twin who hadn't spoken yelled. Harry wondered at the nickname. For all he knew the twin could be a brat- it was a descriptionn of personality- but the older girl looked a healthy weight to him.

At least four sets of eyes weren't on Harry any more. Only Lily and Mia still looked at Harry, and the little girl only seemed to be doing so because she liked leaning against her mother's leg. Harry wondered why Lily was looking at him, and what the expression was, exactly, to wrinkle her brow like that as she stared at him.

'Hey!' James exclaimed, as his daughter's wand was snatched out of his hand. He twisted around in search of the culprit, but the twin girls had already run into the house, their older sister hot on their heels. 'Don't break anything a reparo can't fix!' he called after them.

Lily subsequently detached her youngest child, at least that Harry had seen, and strode across the grass. The war-torn young wizard felt the urge to step back, lest he get shouted at too, and it must have shown as the woman smiled sweetly at him. Mia, too, looked happy as her father scooped her up and waited by the door.

'My name is Lily,' she smiled at him, 'if you aren't too sick of our family's energy, you're welcome to join us for breakfast.'

Harry gave his closest approximation of a smile, and nodded. As Lily accompanied him back inside, she asked him a question that Harry was unsure how he should answer.

'So, what did my husband tell you of our family?'

'That… he loves you all very much.' Harry half-lied. Lily caught the fib, and Harry corrected himself. 'Well, it was implied.'

'Yes. He does often imply things, instead of actually saying them. He implies that our children have important milestones upcoming, for example. But he's always very explicit when talking to Sirius, because Merlin forbid Padfoot miss one of our family occasions.'

'Padfoot isn't at every family occasion!'

'No, no, you're right. Just the important ones.' Harry saw a smirk on Lily's lips while she was saying this, as James tried his hardest to defend himself.

They continued the conversation as Harry and Mia took their seats at the breakfast table, with Mia regaling him with a story about her illustrious medical career that Harry had a feeling was made up. She was midway through telling him about the time she removed a pair of antlers that had been growing out of a man's bottom, she had giggled at the word, when the rest of her family sat down at the table. She had started again, so that they could follow along, and they had all feigned interest as the six-year-old painted an exciting picture of her fantasy. Lily and James both seemed happy that she was so excited to become a Healer, and offered soft encouragements to Mia every once in awhile.

Harry hadn't heard the conversation the two had, but they had been gone for some time. He suspected, therefore, that James had filled his wife in on what had been discovered and discussed the night before. Plus, there was the fact that Lily was shooting him disbelieving looks in between praising Mia's tale.

Eventually the story ended, when pancakes were placed before the girl, and conversation died down for a time as those around the table tucked into the hearty servings. Harry took his time, unused to eating cooked food that wasn't seared meat or boiled vegetables, and found himself savouring the taste. They had been cooked by utensils that had been moving by magic, and he had no idea whether the making had been especially skilled, but these pancakes were, by far, the greatest thing he had ever tasted.

He expressed as much when finished, though without the enthusiasm he felt it deserved, and Lily laughed softly.

'If you like of my cooking, just wait until you reach Hogwarts. The House Elves put even the best restaurants to shame.' she said, with a soft smile.

Harry asked, confused, 'I'm going to Hogwarts?'

James made a noise, and opened his mouth to say something before snapping it shut with an audible click as Lily looked at him with the same glare from earlier.

'Another thing you forgot to mention?' she asked.

'It must have slipped my mind…' he nodded repeatedly, with a strained smile.

'What year will he be starting in, mum?' the oldest daughter asked, looking from Harry to Lily and back again.

'Dumbledore didn't say anything to me.' James shrugged, when Lily asked the same question to him. All interested parties, which was everyone except Mia who was eating some more pancakes, looked at Harry for an answer.

'I didn't know I was going.'

'Well, what age are you?' Lily asked.

'I don't know,' Harry said, apologetic as he could, with a shrug.

'You don't know how old you are?' one twin asked.

'What year were you born in? Or would it be manufactured?' the other queried.

'What date?' the first said, again.

'I don't know that, either.' he told them.

'How can you not know what year you were born in?' the oldest daughter asked, with a confused frown.

Harry shook his head before responding, 'I had more important things on my mind.'

'Like what?'

'Harry, come on. They'll be able to tell how old you are at the Ministry, and you need to get progressed anyway. Better to do it now than let them get in a huff.' James said, suddenly, and stood up.

Harry followed his lead, and they left the Potter residence a few minutes later with the sound of a pop of Apparition. They left Lily to answer many questions, her daughters fueled by her husband's evasion of the last question, and, while she would do an exceptional job of telling half-truths and white lies, the girls would all have reached a conclusion of their own about Harry. Amaryllis, the oldest of the Potter daughters, would be brought closer to the truth when her best friend came over later that day, in preparation for the Quiddich World Cup.

Harry Potter was sixteen years old as of July the 31st; the same date as Amaryllis, James had commented. After that, he had explained to Harry that was the name of his eldest daughter, remembering that he hadn't introduced his family. The twins were called Penny, with shorter hair, and Paige, with longer, Harry caught something about Lily not letting him name a child Slagathor as James muttered it under his breath, and Harry knew Mia already, though James felt the need to specify that her full name was Euphemia, after James' mother.

Apparently it was the 18th of August 2003, today. Harry had thought that it was before that year, but shrugged it off; he didn't even know when he had been born, let alone the current date. When the past had been discussed, in his experience, it was more about events than dates. He could have formed an incorrect opinion somewhere down the road easily enough. Or maybe this world was ten years, or so, ahead of his.

The Ministry processed him eventually, Harry only having to sit in a room for six hours while some sour-faced worker scribbled through forms tutting and tsking every few minutes. As Harry grew more and more restless, he began watching the room's window, facing a busy corridor. He stopped, though, when Arthur Weasley strolled past after only a few minutes of Harry's observation.

Others would be in the building who Harry had seen die. He had no desire to try and overcome the twisting feeling that came with every glimpse of them. That Sirius and Remus were back was strange enough; he could ignore it with just the two, though, as though he had been mistaken about the permanence of their demise. Harry knew that the events of his world were entirely different to this one… but he had no desire to attempt to wrap his head around that fact. Not yet, not until he was convinced that he had not simply gone insane.

The only thing that kept Harry from fidgeting and, eventually, screaming, was the box of newspapers that has been shoved at him when he asked what he was meant to do while sitting here. He had been reluctant to read them, having heard little-to-nothing good about the journalism of Wizards, but it was better than the alternative of just staring into space. Maybe he could actually discover something interesting about this world that, so far, seemed very… monotonous.

'You done, Samson?' asked James, when he eventually returned in search of Harry. He had left Harry to begin the process nearly eight hours ago, this section beginning after two hours of questions about his history of illness both mental and physical from a kind-faced Healer, in order to catch up on work. That was what James had told Harry, at least.

'He can leave,' the worker, still buried in paper, gave as a response. Harry quickly did, pushing past James and striding down the hall to avoid someone or something pulling him back into the mind-numbingly boring room. He heard James hurry to follow, and found the elevators, through luck far more than anything else, at the end of the corridor.

When James caught up with him, Harry was already inside the box and repeatedly pressing the Atrium button. The Potter Patriarch squeezed through closing doors, and stood in awkward silence as Harry stared at the buttons as light ticked over each one.

Eventually, James grew impatient and tried to start a conversation, 'So, did everything go okay?'

'Yes.' Harry answered. Everything had gone smoothly, it had just been a dragging process.

'Oh, good. Well… are you looking forward to attending Hogwarts?' James tried to fill the gap that Harry left open.

'Not especially.'

'Oh? Why not?'

Harry glanced at the man, his magical eye mirroring the movements of the unchanged eye in his right socket. 'Why would I be?'

'Because Hogwarts is great!' James exclaimed, horrified that Harry would even ask, 'Quiddich, pranks, food, friends, Peeves, Nick, Hagrid, the Forest, the Kitchens, even classes are fun sometimes! Although I hear with Snivel-Snape teaching potions that class sucks. And this year, too! Don't say anything to the girls, but this year is going to be something special! I mean I envy you being there, even if you can't compete! I might be able to get to the challenges, but you'll be there throughout it!'

Harry didn't understand what was being said, but it sounded as though it was a secret.

'The World Cup and this in the same year… it's going to be epic, I guarantee.' James' grin was slightly strained, and Harry wondered why.

'Everything okay?'

'Yeah! Yeah, of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?'

'You look like you just swallowed a spider.'

'How did you-' James begun to demand, and then made an oh face, 'you said swallow a spider, didn't you. Not get swallowed by a spider?'

'You've been swallowed by a spider?' Harry asked. Interesting. He'd encountered spiders big enough to swallow him, but they'd been scared off when he set one of their number on fire. He'd never ventured back into the forests near Hogwarts after that, thinking that he heard a voice from the largest, an immobile arachnid, saying that he'd made lifelong enemies of their kind.

'Not… me.'

'Who, then?' Harry asked. James looked reluctant to respond, and Harry wondered who he could have been talking about. The obvious choice was one of his friends, if they were as close-knit in this world as Harry's. Harry wondered which of them would have encountered the arachnids, and remembered Remus telling him that he had once gotten into the forest in wolf form, and that he had killed several giant spiders before losing interest. Maybe they remembered him and had attacked him in human form.

'... Mary.' a shortened version of Amaryllis, which made sense considering the oddness of that name for a child; the same had been done with Euphemia. Harry raised his eyebrows.

'She was swallowed by a spider? How did that happen?'

'Oh, she wasn't swallowed by a spider, but one of them did come quite close. If she hadn't hit it with a… in second year, she went into the Forest because she thought Hagrid's pet spider- yeah, they're Hagrid's- would be able to tell her how to save her friend. Alone, at that. Too fearless for her own good, that one.' James shook his head, and Harry wondered if, maybe, he should have been more concerned about the girl when she was pointing her wand at him.

'And you looked ill because your daughter has a habit of doing things like that?' he asked, curious.

'Yeah, she definitely does. Like last year- she saw a Death Eater's name on our map and, instead of telling Dumbledore or calling me on the mirror, went off to try and catch him herself, with just her friends along for the ride! Yeah, he's a pathetic little- but that doesn't mean three underage witches stand a chance against him! If Sni-Snape hadn't been there, I don't know what would have happened. And I'm sure as hell not happy that it was him that rescued them, either!'

Harry said, 'So that's why you looked ill? Because you think she might get herself in danger again this year?' as he wondered who this SniSnape was, and why he seemed to come up quite often in the Potter's conversations.

'I'd be more worried if there wasn't an age-restriction. I'm sure she'd get selected if she was an option, and Lily and I would be… nerve racked if that happened.' James shook his head, and then changed the subject, 'But we were talking about something else before this, right? What was… oh! The World Cup, and my good news!'

'Your good news?'

'Yeah, I did have an extra ticket, like I thought! So you can come, isn't that great?' the man was grinning, as he asked, at Harry. Harry's less-than-enthused expression prompted James to continue with the smile fading. 'What, you don't like Quidditch?'

Harry shrugged his shoulders, 'I've heard good things about it, but it stopped being played when I was a baby. I've never seen it myself.'

James reeled back, horrified, and Harry stared at the man with anxiety as he placed a hand over his heart. As though the thought of Harry never having watched or played Quidditch was going to kill him.

As they walked through the Atrium, James' shocked expression drew nearly as many looks as Harry's silver, and the man did not stop until it was time for them to Apparate back to the Potter residence.

'Have you been drinking? Let me smell your breath.' Amaryllis pulled at her best friend's chin, trying to smell the alcohol that had recently been in Hermione's gullet.

'Get off!' Hermione laughed, shoving Amaryllis off. The girl-who-lived laughed with her, falling back onto her bed, and didn't stop as Hermione answered her, believing her friend to be joking. 'And no, I haven't been drinking. It really is a possibility!'

'No it's not! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!'

'No it isn't! Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's dumb!'

'You're absolutely right,' Amaryllis kept a straight face as she said the words, 'what makes it dumb is that it's dumb!'

'Shut up!' Hermione glared at her friend, playfully.

'Make me, bookworm!'

'Don't think I won't, scarface!'

'Teacher's pet!'

'Glory-seeker!'

'Mudblood!'

'Blood Traitor!'

'Slut!'

'Whore!'

'Bitch!'

'Dyke!'

'Hey! You take that back!'

'You started it!'

'I did not!'

'You did too!'

'You told me to shut up!'

'You called me dumb!'

'I didn't call you dumb! I said your idea was dumb! There's a difference!'

'No there isn't! You can't have a dumb idea if you're not dumb!'

'You can too!'

'You can not!'

'Can!'

'Can't!'

'Well, what about when Flitwick asked the Weasley Twins to demonstrate how they did that locomotive spell?! He's not dumb, but he failed to see what they were obviously going to use to demonstrate!'

Hermione giggled again, something she never would have done if the Weasleys had actually been there. It would have ruined her reputation as a serious girl who always abided by the rules, never missed homework and would not have dared associate with hooligans.

'See?! I win.' Amaryllis smirked triumphantly, from her place still lying on the bed.

'You do not! Flitwick floating around the corridors until he could figure out the counter-charm has nothing to do with science!'

'You mean science-fiction!'

'No I don't! Stop acting like you know the first thing about science!'

'I do too know the first thing about science!'

'Prove it!'

'Gravity! The Earth revolves around the sun and the stars just look like they're moving because the Earth spins! Water has the chemical formula of H2O!'

'Okay, you're right. You know the first thing about science. But not the second or third or whatever number this is! It's a complicated theory that's believed by virtually every scientist. Or, at the very least, isn't disbelieved by them!'

'And I don't believe you! No way is he some kind of dimension traveller, that only happens in movies and books!'

'Name one movie about dimension travel!'

'Bill and Ted's excellent adventure!' Amaryllis stuck her tongue out at Hermione.

'That's about time travel! So put that thing back in you mouth unless you intend to use it!' She puckered her lips in a kissing motion, and Amaryllis wiggled her tongue before speaking with it still sticking out.

'Amb wath thud I yooth it thor?'

Both giggled again, as Hermione flicked the wriggling digit. 'And you say you're not a dyke.'

'I'm not!'

'Keep telling yourself that.'

'Why are you calling me a dyke when you have your face in my crotch?'

'What are you- hey!'

Hermione squirmed, as Amaryllis tackled her back onto the bed and mounted her best friend, climbing up Hermione's body to sit on the other girl's face. Had she not been wearing trousers, the intention would have been quite different to their teasing games.

'C'mon, 'Mione! You've gotta do better than that if you want to keep a girl interested.' Amaryllis purred, as her friend pushed against her bum, trying to shift her off Hermione's face.

'Unlike you,' Hermione's voice, muffled, exclaimed into Amaryllis' crotch, 'I don't want to keep a girl interested!'

'How d'you know, if you've never even tried it?' Amaryllis asked, pretending to grind her clothed crotch onto Hermione's face.

Hermione slipped out, the motions freeing her head from its prison, and tackled her friend right back, Amaryllis' queen sized bed just about big enough for them to wrestle atop. At the end, Amaryllis was on top, pinning her less-sporty friend with both arms.

'Don't you dare try and have your way with me, lesbian.' Hermione said, in a jokingly-warning tone.

'And how do you intend to stop me?' Amaryllis smirked down at her friend.

'I'll scream for your mum.' Hermione warned, with her own lips quirking upwards.

'That's no threat. She'd probably just want to join in.' Amaryllis said, and her straight face broke a moment later as she fell into a fit of giggles on top of Hermione.

'Hey! Geroff me!' Hermione complained, with Amaryllis lying on her.

'Maybe, in some other dimension, there's a Hermione who isn't such a homophobe.' the Potter girl sighed, rolling off Hermione.

'Theoretically, there's an infinite number of Hermiones. So, in a few of them, there's a Hermione who's, at this very moment, pinning you down and fucking her with her strapon.' Hermione said, in her serious voice, as the two lay side-by-side staring at the ceiling.

'Oh, you know just how to get a girl's motor running, don't ya?' Amaryllis purred to her friend. Again, they laughed, and then Amaryllis asked a question that was almost serious, 'D'you honestly think that he's from some different universe?'

'He could be,' Hermione shrugged, Amaryllis felt a shoulder move on the bed next to her, 'it's really widely believed that there are other realities. You see, while our universe is expanding more and more rapidly with each second, space is infinite outside of it. So there are billions and billions of other universes- other realities out there that differ from ours in some way. In many, we won't even exist as we know ourselves, but in others there are differences so minute that it would take you a lifetime to even discern what they are.'

'Differences like the one with Strapon Hermione.'

'Like that,' Hermione said, with a smirk in her voice, 'but it sounds like the one he comes from diverges quite dramatically from ours.'

'Look, I don't know if I'm right. It just seemed like they were hiding something and my mom's lies are kind of see through…'

'Yes, yes, and you think that, with the way he looks, it must have been a war.'

This time, it was Amaryllis' turn to shrug, not knowing what to say. She'd told Hermione that that was what it looked like, but she hadn't considered the fact that this Harry person had actually been in a war.

'Maybe we should just ask him,' Hermione suggested, as the sound of a door closing downstairs came from downstairs, 'it would mean we don't have to just speculate.'

'I really don't think that's a good idea…'

'Oh? Is someone afraid of the new boy?' Hermione asked, her voice full of cheek. Amaryllis bristled at that.

'Not a chance,' she said, and found herself standing up, 'I just thought he might be uncomfortable with that topic. But if I need to prove something, then let's go do it.'

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but by the time the words formed on her lips Amaryllis had stormed out of her bedroom with determination. 'I didn't mean… now…'

Harry had never given clothing much thought, before now. When he was cold, he would search out a jumper or jacket and when going through brambles and bushes he needed trousers and boots but, more often than not, he made do with animal skins fashioned into something vaguely resembling human clothes. Even then, Harry hardly cared about clothing without extreme weather conditions, and only wore them on the off chance that he came across some people who would react badly to a naked teenage boy. Plus, back when others were with him, they preferred that he act with modesty.

Now, though, he had the need of clothes for the sake of fitting in. The more of his body that was on display, even ignoring this civilisation's dislike of nakedness, the more silver could be seen by those around.

But he didn't know how to sew. That meant Harry would have to buy clothes, probably several changes if he was to attend Hogwarts. To buy things, he would need money.

How did people get money when they were attending school? He couldn't get a job at the same time, unless they offered work in the castle, and stealing would be looked down upon.

The matter was tricky, and made all the more pressing by Harry's need for a wand. The magic he could use without one was very limited, after all, and there was no shortage of the mediums in this world. He wouldn't put it off for any longer than he had to. Harry would inquire, at the local wand-seller, about a way to work for one. After that, he might be able to use magic as a way to make clothes of a higher quality than the flimsy conjured scrubs he currently was making do with.

But, to do so, Harry would need knowledge he didn't currently have. He had never needed to make anything beyond the crudest of clothes and instruments, and spellcrafting was not something he knew much about. What people called wartime spells were not crafted during battle, but by old men at comfortable desks who had been told what the young men fighting and dying needed to be able to do.

Knowledge meant books. Books would have to be purchased. That meant he needed money, once again, unless Harry was willing to just take what he needed. It would be a bad idea to steal from shops, though, because security in magical shops just required a couple of charms that Harry would need to cast counter charms aloud in order to break. Saying them aloud would alert the shop owner of what he was doing.

So, no. Harry couldn't steal items, and he'd already established that stealing money would be at least as bad an idea.

Unless…

'Harry!' a girl interrupted his thoughts, stomping down the stairs as though they had done something to offend her. Or maybe Harry had annoyed the girl with the strange name.

Amaryllis stopped in front of him, with her arms crossed and some measure of amusement in her eyes. 'Harry, my friend has a theory about where you came from,' she said, piquing Harry's interest.

'Mary!' another girl, with brown hair that was… large, called from the staircase.

'That's Hermione. She wants me to ask you something.' Amaryllis paused, and Harry guessed she was asking permission to ask.

He nodded, and the girl voiced her question, 'Do you come from an alternate universe?' she asked, with a smirk.

'It seems that I do, yes.' Harry nodded, answering the question.

'Ha, I tol- wait, what?' she looked at him dumbly, and Harry started as her friend made a very loud noise, now at the bottom of the stairs.

'HA!' she didn't seem to notice Harry wincing in quite a large movement, as she yelled at her friend, 'Now who's the idiot?!'

'Oh, please!' Amaryllis replied, with a snort of derision that sounded fake, 'You put him up to giving that answer! Like I'm just going to believe him because he says it!'

Harry heard footsteps nearing them, as the two continued to yell back and forth. Neither sounded angry, though; friends often fought jokingly. He was fairly confident that that was what was happening here.

'We've already established that it's possible, if he says it is what's happening then it's obviously true! And how would I have put him up to it?! This is the first time we've met and you haven't even bothered to introduce me!'

'Hermione, this is Harry, the bloke who was sleeping on our lawn this morning! Harry, this is Hermione, she's Hogwarts resident bookworm and seems to believe you're some kind of alien from another world!'

'A pleasure to-' Harry tried to be polite, and was cut off by the girl. He was surprised that Hermione had not seemed shocked in the slightest by his appearance.

'I didn't say he was an alien! He comes from Earth, just not this Earth!'

'Careful, 'Mione! If you don't watch your step he might decide to pro-'

'Girls!' Lily Potter came through the door with a pair of light brown slippers in her hand, and Harry wondered if she intended to hit her daughter and friend with the soft shoes, 'What are you yelling about?!' she, too, yelled.

Harry brushed a bug off his right shoulder that he hadn't noticed before, absentmindedly, and continued to watch the exchange.

'Mom! Good, you're here! Is Harry from another universe!?' Amaryllis demanded, and Lily came up short with a surprised expression. She glanced at Harry with an odd expression, as though asking permission to do something, before answering in an uncertain voice.

'W-What would make you think that?'

'Besides Hermione insisting that it somehow makes sense because science, Harry decided to back her up!'

'Oh, Harry told you? Then yes, sweetie, he is. But don't just go around blurting it out, we don't want it getting out before we can decide how to proceed.' Lily smiled at her daughter, and the smile faded as Amaryllis turned red and her mouth opened and closed like a confused cod. She looked shocked and horrified and almost angry. But, when she spoke, her verbalisation did nothing to reflect any of that emotion.

'Okay…' she said, her voice meek rather than stressed.

James yelled, from somewhere, that tea was ready and Harry followed the others down the corridor towards the dining room.

'Told you,' Hermione whispered to Amaryllis.

'Shut it,' was the reply she received, along with the Potter girl sticking out her tongue.

Harry ate slowly, the chicken and mashed potatoes being seasoned with spices as well as accompanied by vegetables and stuffing. All in all, the flavoured meats and veg were nearly as strange as eating pancakes and the liquid sugar that had been poured over them. The conversation revolved around the upcoming quidditch game, primarily, and only Hermione and Lily did not seem to share the rest of their enthusiasm for the subject. But both seemed happy to listen to the excitement in the family's voices raving about Ireland's team and the Bulgarian Seeker.

Harry only payed enough attention for the various voices to lull him into an unthinking state, not far from meditation, and almost missed his name being said as a result.

'-treat him?'

'Like he's your… cousin, I suppose. One you didn't know you had until now, when James discovered him in an orphanage.' Lily said, her voice gaining a certain sureness at the end of the thought.

'Why wouldn't we have known him until now?'

'We could say he's from a branch of the Potter family who fell out of the main body's good graces a long time ago.'

'And looks almost exactly the same as me, but with your eyes?'

'I don't think people will buy that.' Penny objected.

'We aren't very good liars.' Paige agreed.

Lily pursed her lips, and didn't give any response until prompted by James.

'Well… how about we say that we adopted him?'

'No, no, that wouldn't work. The Ministry would have had to file the papers for that to happen.' Lily replied.

'Then I can get them to file the papers. Everyone will just assume he was blood adopted, once they saw his features.' James suggested.

'He's been seen in the Ministry today, though. Someone would be bound to notice that the papers said he was adopted after the day they saw him looking like you.' Lily shook her head, shooting down the idea.

'I could slip the papers in amongst the ones they filed yesterday,' James offered, 'or I could just say I forgot about those papers today; I do have a reputation for forgetting about paperwork, although that's mainly 'cause I work with Padfoot… still, they'd buy it.'

'And what about the ritual? Are they meant to buy that we just did it ourselves? There are two people who could do that ritual in England, and one of them's an Unspeakable.'

Unspeakables… Harry remembered tell of them. He remembered seeing the destruction they'd wrought with his own eyes. Of smelling the burnt air with his own ultra-sensitive nose. They had replaced the air with dragonfire when it became clear that the Ministry had fallen, and taken hundreds of Riddle's followers with them to the grave. Almost taken Bellatrix, but she'd escaped when she saw one of those known to her looking utterly terrified and had gotten antsy.

'Dumbledore would back us if we told that story.'

'You know Fudge has been looking for an excuse to ostracise Dumbledore for years, performing a blood ritual without permission, even one that's as an adoption, is illegal.'

'We should have thought about this before I took him to the Ministry,' James sighed, 'I'm surprised Dumbledore didn't mention it yesterday… I guess he overlooked it, too.'

'We definitely should have.' Lily agreed. Harry swallowed the chicken he was currently chewing, and asked a question.

'What happens if you just don't say where I've come from?' he asked, 'Could they penalise you for that?'

'No, not after you've been registered with the Ministry. You can't lie on the forms, and one of the ones you signed stated you were born in Britain, so they couldn't even deport you.' James told him, presumably familiar with the law thanks to his job as an Auror.

'So why are you so determined to find an excuse for my sudden arrival? Surely you could just avoid talking about it?' Harry reasoned.

'We could, we were just thinking it would be unfair to you,' James said, in answer, with a slight dip in his brow, 'if you've just sprang into being, then people won't trust you.'

Harry blinked, raised his right eyebrow, and asked, 'And you're concerned about me fitting in?' he asked, with a slight smile at the thought. Harry gestured the left side of his jaw, made entirely of silver, 'You could have an entire... detailed story of my life that painted me as a saint, but it wouldn't make much difference in that matter.'

It was Hermione who spoke next, 'A Biography,' she said, filling in the gap that Harry had had in his vocabulary. Harry nodded.

'That's the word.'

James was eyeing the indicated section of Harry's face with a frown, recalling what Harry had told him the night before.

'You said Glamours don't disguise it, didn't you?' he asked.

Harry nodded, 'Glamours, Polyjuice Potion, Transfiguration. None of it does anything but mess with the rest of my face so that it all looks disproportionate.' Lily and Hermione were both looking at him with speculative looks, mirrored ineffectively by Mia, and it was Lily who asked for an explanation. Harry gave some thought to the inquiry before answering as his throat gave a slight burn, 'The metal doesn't change for external forces, it maintains the same basic form. That means that if, for example, I used Polyjuice to change into Hermione, it would be Hermione with half my jaw, a metal hand far too big for her, and one leg longer than the other.'

'Hm,' again, both had looks of interest, and again Lily was the one who asked, 'I was under the impression, though, that you gained some of the injuries years ago. Surely you've grown since then?' She made a good point. Harry was well muscular and tall, and it had been years since he got the first scar.

'And the metal grew with me,' Harry said.

'How?' Hermione asked.

'I don't know.' Harry said, 'The ritual that was used wasn't well documented; from what I could tell only the original creator had ever attempted to use it before me. It was a miracle that we managed to decipher all the steps and that R- one of our number managed to stabilize it a little more.'

'Why was that a miracle?' Hermione asked.

'Well, it was poorly recorded,' Harry decided to answer first, and tried to decide how to say the second part, 'and it ended badly for the first guy who tried it.'

'Badly?'

'Very badly.' Harry said, with no particular inflection. They got the message, though, that he didn't want to say more. That was a good thing.

Had they made the same mistake, whatever it was, as the first man, Harry's body would have gone into overdrive. As every cell died and was replaced, he would have been transformed entirely into metal. His body would respond badly, and fight back against it with everything he had instead of embracing the new substance as it had. If it had been the same as the inventor, his body would have lost to the attacking force and he would have become an unliving statue.

'Then… why did you try?' Amaryllis was frowning at him now.

Harry's right hand twitched towards his left hip, and he resisted the temptation to touch the first segment of his body to be lost. A dark blasting curse had caught him there, and there had been no solution that didn't demand sacrifice on his part. In this case an excruciating amount of pain, and substituting flesh for metal. The smooth material had taken weeks to grow, in that case, and the process was one of the most unpleasant memories Harry had. Not the most, but it was on the list.

'I wouldn't have survived had we not,' Harry told her, 'and if I had I would have been crippled, and would have stood even less chance of… victory.' It was difficult not to spit the last word.

'VIctory against who?'

As Harry opened his mouth to reply, he caught a slight movement from James in the corner of his eye. It was only slight, but he was shaking his head, and Harry wondered why that would. Then it occurred to him; she was the girl who lived, a counterpart to the label that had convinced everyone he was the chosen saviour. If… when she found out that he had been fighting a battle she no doubt feared having to fight, Amaryllis would be frightened.

'Some Dark Wizards. My world went to sh-hell, and I stupidly tried to fight back.' he gave a slightly bitter smile, 'Repeatedly.'

'What does that mean?' Mia asked him, 'That it went to shell?'

'It… society collapsed when people started throwing shells at each other.' Harry did his best to smile at her, the expression feeling strange on his face, and the girl nodded, adding it to her list of general trivia.

The conversation was more subdued from that point on, and Harry's offer to help tidy up after dinner was rejected. Following which, he was strong armed into a game of Quidditch. For the first time he could remember, Harry Potter was in the sky and, he had to admit, it was incredible.

He had some kind of natural talent for the game they were playing, and the four people playing with him all made some kind of comment on the fact. Apparently Amaryllis was the seeker on the team and James had, at one point, been a star chaser. Though the twins hoped to get on the team, they would not be allowed since, at thirteen, they were only entering their first year and would have to wait until second. Harry struggled to know why, and wondered if it might be so that those who came from magical families had an advantage of being far more experienced than their muggleborn counterparts. James seemed convinced that he would be in Gryffindor, though Harry could not discern why, and knew that the Keeper's position would be open next year. Somehow it was decided that Harry would try out for it, though the boy in question was not involved in the discussion. Instead, he stayed quiet; Harry barely understood what was happening, but hardly minded that they were trying to make an effort to reach out to him through flying. Even if he didn't have any particular drive to play a game, a broom was something he added to the list of things he would buy when money was less of an issue.

Some deep part of him seemed to belong in the sky, and embraced the freedom that came with the feeling of flight.

Four hours later, after yet another heated conversation about the upcoming World Cup final, Harry was lying on top of a bed in what he had been told was his room. He didn't sleep deeply enough to dream, when unconscious he was helpless and Harry had well learned the lesson that it was a poor state in which to be, and so the night should have passed by in what felt like the blink of an eye.

It didn't though. Harry couldn't drown out the sounds in the rest of the house completely, the sounds of humans were strange to him, and so he stared at the ceiling as Amaryllis' fearful mutterings filled his ears.