Chapter ten

After Severus left, Harry had to do one thing, so he grabbed his cloak and apparated to Godric's Hollow. He stood staring at the potter home, his home, but not really. He stood invisible for a few minutes then as quietly as he could walked towards the large windows. The blinds were down but there was a small gap, he could see his father sitting on the floor with him as a baby. Harry shook his head, he had to remind himself that these people were not his family. James was sitting on the floor with his son Harry, Lily was sitting on the sofa behind her husband. Harry couldn't hear what was being said, but he thought they looked happy.

'I wish I could see Sirius, I wonder where he lives. Maybe Dumbledore could tell me, just so I could see him,' Harry sighed feeling wistful, then moved away from the house down the quiet road before apparating away, 'I have to remember their not my family, but it will be good to see them, maybe see a bit of their lives. Everything here is almost identical so far, so if I got to see them, that would let me know what my parents were probably like.'

Those thoughts made Harry feel better, so after showering, he climbed into bed wondering what he was going to do in this life. What type of job could he get, he never got his N.E.W.T.s but he knew he could pass, even potions. Maybe that is something I need to speak with my…granddad about.

The following morning after a cup of tea, Harry decided now he was over the shock of being in a parallel dimension he thought he'd look around this safe new world, but would do that after he had spoken with Dumbledore. When he stepped into his office he saw papers sitting on the desk, he never noticed them yesterday. So Harry sat down and looked through everything. It was all his documents with his new name, his deed to the house, his vaults and what they contain, everything he needed to start a new life as Brian Dumbledore even N.E.W.T.s, that he passed with almost all o's, just a couple of e's and one a. As Harry thought about everything he glanced around and caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the glass on the large cabinet.

'I still look like me, so I look like James Potter, how's that going to work?' Harry pointed his wand at his own hair, it went from black to dark blond, then he lightened his eyebrows so they matched, he pulled his glasses off. Even though he was a little blurry he could see just doing those two things changed his appearance. 'Maybe I could get rid of the glasses and use contact lenses, I might do that first, get it out of the way.'

Harry checked to see how much money he had, not enough, so he left the house and went to Gringotts got his money changed to muggle pounds then headed into London. He saw the eye specialist, had a few test done and said he could pick up his contacts in a couple of hours, but Harry ordered a few more pairs that he could pick up in a week. Harry left the shop and decided to look around London for a while. It seemed exactly the same, so Harry realised apart from things like Voldemort and death eaters, these worlds were identical. After looking in different shop windows, he sat at a café, had a coffee and some cake thinking about this new life, a life where no one knew him, that thought made Harry smile. He realised he could finally be like everyone else, be a normal young man and not the-boy-who-lived.

After putting in his contacts and paying, Harry left the shop and headed back to his home and straight through the tunnel to Hogwarts. He wasn't sure where Dumbledore was, so he decided to head up to his office first. Harry knocked and heard Dumbledore call to come in.

'Hi,' Harry smiled shyly.

'Oh very good…Brian, I was discussing your looks with Minerva last night. We weren't sure how you would feel about making some changes.'

'Well I thought about it this morning, so I changed my hair then got contact lenses. So do you think this is enough to stop me looking like James Potter of this world?'

'Yes, it does Brian. Naturally your facial features are still similar, but unless someone really studies you, I do not believe anyone will pick up the truth. Now, I was hoping to speak with you in regards to another idea Minerva and I discussed. So take a seat Brian,' Albus waited until Harry sat and pushed a bowl of sweets towards him, then smiled when Harry took one, 'About you and what you would like to do, in regards to employment. I did see that your vaults are fairly full so it's not something you need to worry about for a long time.'

'Actually I thought of this earlier. I'm not one for just sitting around doing nothing. I've been an active person my whole life, I like purpose in my life.'

'Yes, just from those few letters I received from you and the small amount of time we have spent together, I can see that. Well, Minerva had a suggestion for you to consider.'

'Oh, okay,' Harry wondered what this McGonagall's suggestion was, she didn't know Harry.

'Right now all but one teacher has an apprentice; Filius Flitwick is our charms teacher. Would you consider becoming his apprentice?'

'Oh,' Harry's eyes widened, 'charms, I'm pretty good at charms now, I had trouble with it years ago, but only because of how my life was, I couldn't concentrate. Um, did I ever explain about something called the DA or Dumbledore's army?'

'No, you never mentioned that. I don't think I like the idea of an army. Is this something I put together?'

'No, you knew about it, but no, let me explain. Okay, in our fifth year no one believed you and me about Voldemort being back, only close friends, order members and so forth. The minister then, Fudge put this woman here to teach defence, but she never taught us, it was mainly so she could report back to Fudge what you and I were up to. Fudge's greatest fear was that you would use the students for your own personal army. Now, because Voldemort was around and we weren't learning defence my friend, Hermione came up with an idea of me teaching them. At first I wasn't sure I could, but after listening to Hermione and Ron, all their arguments in favour of why they thought I could do it, I said yes. But Hermione and Ron had mentioned it to some other trustworthy friends.

'While we were sitting together working things out on our first meeting, there was twenty five of us. Names were being passed around, something we could call ourselves out in the school but wouldn't get anyone suspicious, mainly Umbridge, the bitch of a woman. Anyway, Ginny, Ron's younger sister said the DA or defence association then she said it could also stand for Dumbledore's army as that's what Fudge's greatest fear was. If we were talking around others and said DA they would have no idea what we were talking about, so we went with that and coins that had the proteus charm on them, so I could let everyone know when the next meeting was.

'I was able to teach twenty four students from twelve up to seventeen some advanced spells, or spells that a lot of people had problems with because there was never a defence teacher that lasted. While I was teaching defence, I was also teaching some charms as well, anything we thought we could use. Hermione would research, she's very smart, then tell me what she thought. Every one of those DA members fought the night in the battle of Hogwarts, except the younger members, one snuck back, he died, Colin, Lavender was killed by Greyback the werewolf and Fred, Ron's brother died when the giants blasted a wall he was standing near. So considering that some of us weren't of age, still untrained and going up against dark witches and wizards and ones that had years of knowledge of dark magic, we came out of it pretty unscathed.'

Albus Dumbledore sat there staring at this young man and realised he had a lot more experience than even someone a lot older would have. So the idea of Brian Dumbledore becoming the new charms apprentice sounded perfect for this young man.