A/N: I don't own Harry Potter. I write fanfiction without making money, so it won't be perfect and will most likely have some plot holes.
Chapter 4 – Before the Taking of Toast and Tea
Harry watched the cracks in the ceiling; he saw them stretch out and cross each other, looking like a colourless map. If he strained himself, he could have heard (or imagining hearing) the murmurs of the people in the pub and the rustle of robes moving. He gave a glance towards the big, puffy orange-striped chair at the side of the bed, where Albus Dumbledore had seated himself.
"Professor Dumbledore", he greeted. His voice was raw and sounded strange in his ears. It was not his voice. Slowly, numbly, Harry touched his face. His glasses weren't on him, they were at the tableside. So both Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore had seen the green in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, but have we met Mr …?"
Dumbledore's voice was calm and politely questioning, with a guarded tone slightly beneath the surface. Before Harry could process his own grief over the old man, his body answered by itself by reflex.
"Yu." He tried to cover his mistake, but he knew it was already too late. "Harry Yu." He saw in the corner of his eye that Dumbledore had straightened in the chair.
"You are the missing boy from the Doolally-attack? I was under the impression that your name was Yang Yu." Harry kept staring at the ceiling. Dumbledore's words washed over him and the body he wore made him ache so much. The boy's (Yang's?) brain remembered the woman running down the stairs and the man's legs in what was once their kitchen. He remembered how his body had tried to protect Chun, and how he had failed. He wasn't fit to be called a big brother. He wasn't worthy to even think of her name.
"We need to talk." It was hard to press the words out of his closing throat, but he succeeded. "Can we go to your office now?" He could feel how Dumbledore scrutinized him over those half-moon spectacles. The old wizard didn't ask him why they couldn't talk in this room with all the protection-charms that were surrounding them; maybe he had heard the importance in Harry's voice or he had used the legilimency stroking lightly over Harry's thoughts to get a feeling of the intentions in such a request. Harry never thought that Dumbledore would actually try to break into his mind, at least not when he was in this vulnerable state. Dumbledore had never been like Snape.
Besides, Pomfrey would take actions even Voldemort would fear if her new patient was harmed.
"It may be wise to wait a day or two, Mr Yu. Madam Pomfrey would have my head otherwise. How do you feel?"
Frightened. What if he failed?
Scared beyond belief. What if he was discovered?
Tortured. Why 1976?
Hopeful. The old bastard wouldn't have any safe-lines left if Harry and Hermione succeeded.
Despair. What was the difference if he let Voldemort live or die? What kind of life had Harry left? How many friends were still alive? How many dreams had been crushed to never be restored?
"Tingling."
"That would be your nerves re-growing, and really Headmaster, you shouldn't tire him out! Get out! You can talk to him later!" Dumbledore rose, and the chair turned back its appearance to a normal wooden chair.
"Very well, Poppy. But inform me when our guest feels better. Until next time, Mr Yu." The old man inclined his head, studying Harry's swirling eyes with a rather mysterious expression in his own blue.
It took a night and the most of the next morning until Madam Pomfrey was prepared to let Harry go. Even when she did, she was most unhappy and complained under low breaths that she had never had such a stubborn patient before and that she never wanted to see Harry injured again. Harry almost felt sorry for her, so he was very obedient to her orders and did not utter another word about the meeting (and its importance) with Dumbledore that was going to be held during the afternoon.
"Your nerves, young boy, is much more important than a ruddy meeting!" he heard her mutter. The nurse, however, was much tenderer in her hands than in her voice. "Does this hurt? Hm, yes, it should, with a bruise like that… Now, Mr Yu, I expect you to not do anything foolish like exert yourself. Keep away from cold places…"
"It's July", Harry couldn't help but interrupt.
"…from cold places and don't expose yourself to great stress. Eat and sleep properly. If you do everything I say you may have full recovery in five, six months."
"Half a year?" Harry stared at her wide-eyed. He couldn't have the wound stopping him; he was supposed to chase horcruxes for Merlin's sake!
Madam Pomfrey just gave him a stare that made all his protests stock in his throat.
"It will be longer if you don't follow my recommendations." Her voice had no mercy in it, and Harry was glad when a subtle knock on the door let know that Dumbledore had arrived.
"Are you ready Mr Yu?" He stood there, tall and solemn in midnight blue robes.
"Yeah. Thank you, Madam Pomfrey." She just gave a glare.
"You know very well that I'm going to meet you at dinner." It sounded more like a threat than a reassurance, and Harry thought she meant it that way. Seriously, she was making him stress more than anything else, wasn't that contra-productive?
The air seemed less dense, though, and even though Dumbledore didn't have his twinkle in his eyes or even showed a smile, Harry felt that the old wizard was more at ease than before. Or it was just his hopes flaring up, in reaction to his nervousness.
Even though Harry had tried his best to act calm, his feet betrayed him when he went through the green fire into the Headmaster's room. He never was good with other ways of transportations than a broom. Dumbledore's arm holding him up was surprisingly strong for a man his age (he was after all in his 90s), and his swift walk to the Headmaster's chair was more powerful than a young man's ever could be. Harry wondered idly if he would walk like that when he reached Dumbledore's age. If he reached it.
"Mr Yu, please take a seat."
"Thank you, Professor." Harry seated himself comfortably and put his hands together and took a deep breath to calm the clenching nerves in his stomach.
"You had something urgent to tell me, I believe." Even though Dumbledore's voice was polite Harry couldn't hear the warmth it usually held when his Dumbledore had talked to him. This Dumbledore acted like Harry was a potential dangerous stranger. Even though Dumbledore's hands were on the desk, fingertips against fingertips, Harry had the feeling that if needed Dumbledore's wand was just nanoseconds away to curse him.
Good way to go, Harry. That thought made this conversation loads easier to have.
"Professor Dumbledore", here Harry took a deep breath, "what do you know about horcruxes?"
Nothing really changed after Harry had asked his question, but at the same time everything had changed. The silver instruments on the desk continued to spin and sound softly, the chair he sat in was still comfortable and the portraits still whispered eagerly about this strange person and his strange question and Dumbledore hadn't moved, hadn't blinked. And yet the whole atmosphere seemed so dense that it was hard to breathe and even though the sun shone through the window, the air seemed darker.
"I've heard about them. But it surprises me that someone as young as you, Mr Yu, even knows about the word." The tone was still polite and even, but Harry thought he heard an underlying tone of warning.
"You told me all about them, Professor." Here Dumbledore blinked. He wouldn't have had any student to talk about Voldemort's horcruxes, of course. Did he even know at this time that Voldemort had gone through such a horrible ritual, multiple times, at that? Harry doubted that strongly. Dumbledore didn't seem to be confused though, only wearier.
"You can call me Harry. I was you student. Currently, I'm borrowing Yang Yu's body." As soon as the words had dropped out of Harry's mouth, he knew they sounded wrong. Without hesitation he dived out of the chair before a red beam could hit him.
"Hey, hey, hey! Let me explain! It's not like that! I didn't kill him!" The polite Dumbledore was gone. The wizard that stood behind the desk with the long wand pointed at Harry radiated power and no mercy. For the first time ever, Harry was genuinely scared of Dumbledore; he couldn't grasp how Voldemort ever had the idea of opposing the old man. If he hadn't already known it, Harry would have strongly suspected old snake-face to be out of his mind. So he did what every other sane person would have done, he raised his hands in surrender.
"Please, let me explain. I don't even have a wand. I can even take Veritaserum, just please listen." A tense second past, and Harry thought he would die. His heart felt like it had stopped beating out of shear fear.
"Very well." Albus Dumbledore's voice was cold and demanding. Carefully, Harry removed his sunglasses. It was hard to look into Dumbledore's icy eyes, but Harry made himself do it while seating again. He would have to convince Dumbledore, at any cost.
"So." He let out another deep breath. Damn, this was hard. It felt like he was balancing on a knife's edge. On one side was help and warmth; on the other, basilisk poison.
"I'm from the future."
"You've been here for days. No time-turner can send you back that long." Harry got a feeling that now Dumbledore didn't consider him only as dangerous, but also as a lunatic. Harry just met his old professor's gaze.
"I know. We didn't use a time-turner."
"We?"
"Me and a friend of mine. I'm coming to that later. You need the background information first." He took Dumbledore's silence as an approval of continuing. "I'm from several years into the future. Right now, I'm not even born." That was a strange thought, as he felt himself existing. Cogito, ergo sum, like Hermione had said. "You told me that Voldemort had made six horcruxes, and it is my quest to find them and destroy them." Dumbledore looked sick and shocked by the number of times Voldemort had divided his own soul. Maybe the headmaster looked disturbed because he deep down didn't doubt his former student to do something like that. Rather, he felt, he should have expected something like that.
"Why you?"
"Convenience. Anyways, Voldemort realized what we were doing and decided to make the game more interesting." Here Harry made a face. "He used an ancient ritual. Those horcruxes that were left was sent to different times. My friend and I used a different, and probably a much more ethical ritual, that allows me to act like a chaser. Find the horcrux, destroy it, go back to my time, mission completed." There was a short silence.
"Will you really go back to your time then?"
"If you don't change too much Harry, you will", he remembered Hermione answer when he had asked the same question.
"That depends. If I don't change too much, I will. So far, it has worked." When he saw Dumbledore's pondering gaze he sighed. Unintentionally, he adopted Hermione's patient tone and her words when she had explained the river-theory to him.
"Look, our theory" Hermione's theory "is that time is like a river. Voldemort has thrown a hypothetical stone – the horcruxes – into the river. The time or water or whatever, flows beside the stone. The river is momentarily divided, but becomes the same river again later on. Unfortunately, if we don't destroy the horcrux, Voldemort will achieve his goal of immortality. Therefore, I was sent to destroy the stone. If I succeed, the stone won't have done any greater difference and I'll be sent back to my time. If I don't succeed in destroying the stone or if I stay too long, then the river will divide completely. I don't know what will happen then and I don't intend to find out."
Dumbledore melted the theory by taking a lemon drop from out of his drawer.
"How many times have you… let's say, united the river?" Dumbledore asked while offering Harry the bowl of lemon drops.
"Um… well, small changes still happens, sir. But this is my fourth try and as far as me and my friend can tell, history's main events haven't changed." He took one of the small yellow sweets, popping it into his mouth.
"Are all the horcruxes in the same era?"
Harry shook his head, sucking on the sour candy. "No. But all are in times of war."
Dumbledore nodded, deep in thought. Harry's lemon drop was almost gone when he got the next question.
"What are the horcruxes?"
"Different things. Souvenirs." Dumbledore looked sharply up at the last word. That did indeed sound like Tom Riddle's style. "The ones that are destroyed are a family ring from Voldemort's mother's side, Hufflepuff's cup, Slytherin's locket and an old diary old Tom created."
"You know his name." Dumbledore just received a wry smile.
"Well, it was an essential part of what you told me about him." And maybe for the first time during the conversation, Harry actually thought that Dumbledore had begun to give him the chance of belief.
"And every time you destroy a horcrux you are sent back", Dumbledore repeated.
"Yes, sir", Harry confirmed accepting a second lemon drop.
"You mentioned four horcruxes that had been destroyed, though."
"Yeah. You destroyed the ring in my time."
Dumbledore made a humming noise and the wizard fell silent yet again.
"So this horcrux is with high probability an artefact of Rowena Ravenclaw or Godric Gryffindor."
"Probably Ravenclaw, Professor. You didn't think that Voldemort had gotten his hands on anything belonging to Gryffindor." Harry put his head in his hands and sighed deeply. "But that's all I know. Or all I'm suspecting. I don't know what kind of artefact there is after Ravenclaw, or if the horcrux in this time even is Ravenclaw's. It could be whatever. I'm lost. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to find it. I don't have a bloody wand, because Yang's snapped during the battle. I knew how the locket and the cup and the diary looked, but now I have no clue. What shall I do?"
Harry hadn't really meant to babble about his worries like that, the words just fell out of his mouth like heavy stones, impossible to stop when once started to roll. The burden of the stones never left him, though, as he had expected. The situation felt just the same as when he had began to talk, and he didn't understand why he had thought that telling Dumbledore would change anything. What did he expect the old wizard to do? Fix the problem for him? Answer all of Harry's questions? Becoming Harry's very own, personal, therapist?
Hermione would love that, killing two birds with one stone. Dumbledore would get information and Harry wouldn't bottle up his feelings anymore.
Except, of course, that this wasn't Harry's or Hermione's Dumbledore. This was a younger version.
Oh God. What had he done? He had told Dumbledore way too much of his mission. He had changed Dumbledore's knowledge; he had changed Dumbledore, which ultimately led to changing the timeline. Dumbledore was one of the most influential wizards of the century. It was unavoidable that people and time changed, but in a situation where silence and secrets were golden Harry had thrown away every galleon just to get a possible moment of peace. He never got it, and his secrets were spilled. No return. He couldn't very well obliviate Dumbledore, could he?
…Could he?
No, the thought disappeared almost as fast as it had crossed his mind. In a try to sooth himself while breathing deeply, he remembered that he hadn't told Dumbledore everything. Yes, he had revealed much, but not everything. Dumbledore never needed to know the rest. Those secrets Harry would keep.
But for how long? Dumbledore was a Legilimence, after all.
"I suggest", Dumbledore's calm and strong voice broke through Harry's whirling breakdown, "that we think through this calmly. No panicking. Would you like some tea?"
Harry just stared. He just couldn't make himself respond. Tea?
"I take that as a yes." And with a little flick with his wand, Dumbledore had conjured a teapot with a cherry blossoms and star-pattern and two matching cups that may have been a gift from Hagrid, judging by the size.
"Do you prefer milk in your tea? No?" Dumbledore poured up the vague yellow liquid into both cups and gave Harry one of them.
"Anything else? Sugar or honey perhaps?"
Harry just shook his head, sipping carefully from the hot drink. He felt how his muscles began to relax, how his nerves didn't seem so tense or painful knotted anymore. Had Dumbledore put a Calming Drought in the tea?
"Scented mayweed. A very relaxing herb. No need for other supplements."
"Oh." Harry took another little sip. "I shouldn't have told you as much as I did", he stated, regret in his voice. "I don't know why I did it, I haven't told anyone else like this before, or at least no that much."
"Really, Harry? Or shall I say Mrs Elizabeth Smith?"
Harry almost dropped the cup, splashing the tea over his robes. The hot liquid sank through the clothes' soft material, making Harry hiss of tingling burning pain. Dumbledore just swished with his wand and Harry's clothes was yet again dry, just a tad warmer than before.
"You knew?!" Oh sweet Merlin! Hermione would kill him. He hadn't been as discreet as he had thought he was, Dumbledore knew. Shit. He had changed history more than he thought. Double shit.
"No. I merely had a lucky guess, and you confirmed it. More tea, perhaps?"
"That was no lucky guess!" accused Harry. "You knew. But how?" He needed to know so that he didn't repeat the mistake this time around. Not even Mrs Smith's niece had suspected that Harry had taken over the old lady's body for two weeks.
Dumbledore just drank calmly from his own tea, leaning back into the chair.
"Hepzibah Smith visited a neighbour of mine, in my youth. As I recall, she held a grudge towards her great-aunt Elizabeth Smith for loosing an invaluable heirloom." Dumbledore offered the information, looking over his teacup at Harry who groaned.
"Well, you better remember just who introduced you to those lemon drops", Harry growled, refilling his cup with the mild tea. He needed to relax. He had a moment of satisfaction when Dumbledore seemed to choke of the thought.
"Don't worry, Professor, you would have discovered lemon drops anyway, sooner or later." Your obsession wouldn't be any weaker.
Harry waited until Dumbledore had began breathing normally again before he spoke seriously, swallowing his pride. This was about the world, not about Harry. He clenched his fists, trying to sound earnest but not as embarrassed as he felt.
"Professor, I don't have any possessions here. I don't have a wand. I won't be able to find the horcruxes, even less destroy them if I am defenceless. I promise I will pay back everything if I can just borrow seven galleons for a wand."
Dumbledore just studied him over that damned cup. That gaze was so penetrating. Harry couldn't help but squirm a little in his seat.
"And prey tell, what would you do Harry, when you have a wand?"
Harry just looked at him. Hadn't Dumbledore heard him?
"I'm going to chase the horcrux."
Dumbledore refilled his own cup.
"I thought you said that you hadn't got a clue what or where it was."
Harry wanted to throw the teapot at the old man, how infuriating that calm tone was! He shouldn't have told about his worries.
"I will know soon enough. When my nerves has calmed down, I will feel a" very weak "tugging when I'm close to a horcrux. It will be fine. I have done this before", he all but snapped irritably. Dumbledore wasn't that slightest bit moved by the rudeness Harry was displaying.
Brilliant tactic for asking for money, Harry. Perfectly splendid.
"How old are you Harry?"
The question caught Harry off guard. Whatever was the importance of his age in this situation?
"I'm of age, and have been for a while", he sniffed, sounding alarmingly like Percy Weasly on prefect duty. To be perfectly honest, he wasn't really sure how old he was. He felt so much older than eighteen. He had lived more than nine months in times that wasn't his own, his soul had matured and grown, while his body was still in a comatose that made his own time seem so slow, almost as if it had been standing still while he had been gone. It wasn't like that, Harry knew, but there was a high probability that it still would be the beginning of September 1998 when he returned.
Did that mean that he was soon older than Hermione?
What creeped him out, however, was that Dumbledore just continued to look at him before the old wizard threw a purple spell that seemed to make Harry's pale skin shine in a vague red sort of shimmer. A frowned formed on Dumbledore's wrinkled forehead.
"I'm sorry to say this, Harry, but you still got the Trace on you. If you use a wand you'll be found by the Ministry and they'll break it", Dumbledore explained, seeing the alarmed expression on the youth.
It took a couple of seconds for Harry to process Dumbledore's solemn words.
"But… but it hasn't happened before!" Harry exclaimed, his voice reaching a higher pitch. "I've always used a wand, and no one has Traced me!"
"But then, you haven't been in an under aged body either, am I correct?"
"I have! Once!" Before Harry could develop a ranting with a huge potential, he stopped sidetracked by a thought. "But it was some centuries before the Witch Huntings… Would that make a difference, you think?"
"Certainly. The Trace didn't come to use before the 14th century. Do tell me, how was it, living in that time? Were you able to understand the spoken language or were you constricted to your own knowing of modern English? How…"
A silver instrument let out a small chip-chip-chip sound and Dumbledore seemed rather put out.
"Another time we can have this little medieval chat, perhaps. Madam Pomfrey awaits you. Before you go, Harry, I want you to think over a proposition."
"Sure", Harry shrugged.
"What do you say of becoming a Hogwarts student this year, Harry?" Dumbledore folded his long fingers on the desk while Harry dropped his jaw.
"But… I won't be staying here for that long", he exclaimed, shocked that the Headmaster came to think of such an absurd plan.
"Maybe, maybe not. If you disappear, we can always lay the blame on Lord Voldemort. Merlin knows people won't suspect that explanation", Dumbledore added with a bitter, sad sort of tone.
"Think about the possibilities", coaxed Dumbledore when he saw that Harry still was uncertain. "You could borrow Hogwarts Library for research (even the Restricted Section); you would get money from Hogwarts's Student Found for a wand and necessary equipment. Besides, maybe you will learn something from the lessons? As an old teacher I know too well that some knowledge disappears as soon as it can."
And the most important reason Dumbledore didn't mention, but Harry suspected, was to keep the time-traveller close by. Just in case.
"People would suspect me. I survived an attack. I can't show them my eyes."
"We can say that the aurors found you barely alive, and that your eyes condition comes from a very dark, very rare curse. No one will be any the wiser. You can live at the Leaky Cauldron until the term starts, where Tom can help you in your search." And keep eyes on me, Harry thought cynically. "Tom's a barman; he'll hear things that you may miss."
"We can't tell him about the horcruxes."
"No", Dumbledore agreed. "But we can tell him that you are important in the war. He will search for threats even more eagerly. I think he took a liking to you."
"What will we do when I find the horcrux?"
"We could arrange something that wouldn't be suspicious. A family meeting. A trip to St Mungo's. We'll think of that when the time comes."
"Does Hogwarts even allow transfer students?"
"It isn't unheard of. You will be a special case of course, but due to your family's sudden demise I don't think that people would bother you as much. The teachers are a great buffer if nothing else."
"But what if I change the timeline? What if I erase the existence of a person? What if my presence here changes everything!" It was hard to keep the panic out of his voice. It was even more annoying that the more stressed Harry became, Dumbledore appeared to be calmer.
"Why would you think that it is such a bad thing?"
"What? Excuse me, I don't think I heard you", Harry almost snarled.
Hermione had already made sure that Harry wasn't thinking along the lines of Dumbledore. She would kill him if his resolve would fail now.
"Voldemort has already changed the history you know of. I think it is probable that this universe we are in now is an alternative to your universe… not necessarily the same river, if you so want. Maybe time is like ripples in water, and Voldemort through a stone – a horcrux – beside the centre of the ripples, creating new ripples interfering with the old ones."
"…You're giving me a headache."
It had taken ages for Hermione to explain her river-theory to Harry without him being too confused about it; he had no hopes of understanding Dumbledore's philosophy. The best way to go along with it, Harry had found, was to nod and smile and try not to think too deeply. It kept Hermione happy at least.
How he wished she were here! She would understand Dumbledore. They would have had a great discussion about time travelling and alternative universes, and they would enjoy the theories. He didn't, particularly. They felt too abstract at the same time as they were too real and he just wanted this to be over with and get home. He felt so stretched out.
"Point is, Harry, that when you try to take away the disruption that the horcrux creates, you make a disruption yourself. This is not your timeline, even though it is almost identical. You yourself create new ripples in the water just by being here, whether you act or stay passive. If we go with the river-theory, you can say that there is some spill from the river. That is the changes in that timeline you've visited that can't unite with the main stream (your original time), thus creating an alternative universe. And I do wonder if it isn't the same universe you travel to all the time, as you at least have been in this one before as old Mrs Smith."
Harry blinked.
"…You've lost me. Sorry. Maybe another time…"
"We can find more time to talk about this intriguing situation if you were to become a student here."
That wasn't really as tempting as Dumbledore made it sound. He should have met Hermione.
"You will be closer to information that can make your search easier and quicker."
That argument made it. He had little to lose, hadn't he? And time was of a greater value than discretion, as he had learned when he had stayed in the 1940's.
"It would probably be best if we say I'm a Ravenclaw", he stated after a few seconds of silence. "Then I can read as many books as I want without it being abnormal, and I don't have to be social either."
Dumbledore practically beamed at him, blue eyes twinkling.
They sealed the deal with a lemon drop, that almost choked Harry to death when Madam Pomfrey flooed into the office, demanding to take over her patient for the rest of the evening.
A/N: Thank you for reading (and reviewing ;D ).
And many thanks to the fantastic reviews, story alerts and fav status I've gotten! They have helped in my writing. I hope you enjoy the story this far.