"Are you okay?" The soft feminine voice asked from somewhere directly above him, yet seemingly a long ways away. Breathing deeply as he struggled to wakefulness, the familiar and unique scent of grass, forest, lake and magic filled his nostrils. Hogwarts was the only place in the world that smelled like this, late in the fall as the leaves turned colors and the temperature began to drop. He must have fallen asleep by the lake again and Ron and Hermione just left him to rest.
Ron! Hermione! Conscious thought and the memories of the past assailed him and Harry jumped to his feet drawing his wand and falling into a combat stance immediately, his eyes frantically searching out any threats. He found before him a slight girl with long messy black hair, brown puppy-dog eyes and a startled expression struggling to draw her wand to defend herself. Trying quickly and failing to apparate, Harry dove to the side as he raised a shield charm around him.
The young girl tracked him now with her wand out, here eyes wide, but steadily taking in his actions. Silently Harry sent a barrage of non-lethal curses at her, his goal to incapacitate and question her. A moment later found Harry standing over the petrified, blinded and bound girl holding her wand. His eyes swept over the landscape; leaving him gaping as his eyes caught up to his nose in realizing that he was at Hogwarts. But this wasn't Hogwarts as it was, the castle was whole, the wards hummed, the grounds were lush and the forest stood unburned; even Hagrid's hut seemed untouched, as if someone had reversed time.
Absently releasing the girl with a wave of his wand, he fell onto his backside, stunned and confused.
Just as she had when she first found him, the young, dark haired girl stood over him, this time however, she had her wand in hand, pointed unwaveringly at his heart. "What the bloody hell is your problem?" Her voice was much more harsh than it had been before, "and who the bloody hell are you!
Harry was too far gone, lost in memories of pain, loss and betrayal to comprehend her words as he sat and stared at the castle.
"Bollocks!"
A few minutes later Harry was startled back to lucidity when his body impacted awkwardly with something hard. "Bloody hell!" he said loudly, startling the girl who had been floating him up the castle stairs.
"Oh, sorry about that," she said offhandedly as she cancelled the levitation spell, forcing him to twist in the air to avoid a painful landing.
The ache from where he'd been bashed into the stone stairway and his annoyance at the girl for her carelessness, or revenge he considered, pushed his mind back into the realm of active. Sitting down on the steps, he sighed slightly, muttering about fate and life conspiring to throw him into ever increasingly dangerous, stupid or inconvenient situations at every turn.
"You too huh?" she asked with some minor amusement before sobering, "So what's your story?" she asked, looking at him warily, her wand still in hand.
"I wish I knew," Harry replied honestly, "one minute I'm asleep somewhere else, and now I'm suddenly at Hogwarts, only it's not…" he trailed off, then suddenly asked "What year is it?"
Raising her eyebrow, she told him.
"Bleeding 1994!" he railed loudly, before looking at the sky and uttering a long stream of curses upon whoever he was in a past life for dicking up his karma as much as they had. Cursing done, he felt a bit better and looked over at his companion, smiling somewhat sheepishly, "it helps."
"Who are you?" she asked curiously, lowering her wand slightly.
"You're kidding right, you don't know?"
"No, who are you, I really don't know."
Sighing Harry pondered whether to tell her the truth or not, "Come on, you know who I am," she chided, "It's only fair I know the name of fate's other bitch."
Harry laughed a little, but frowned more as he looked her over. He had a niggling feeling that he did know her, but he couldn't place from where, his confusion obvious to her, she pulled her hair back, revealing a very familiar lightning bolt scar on her forehead.
"Fuck," it really was the only appropriate response. Shaking his head, Harry looked at her again and started seeing things he didn't want to, brown eyes and hair that, while long, were particular to a man he had seen enough pictures of to have memorized and a lithe build that reminded him all to much of the brown eyed man's companion.
"That's not usually how people greet me, but it's still an improvement over all the fawning and ooohing," she said jokingly, then held out her hand, "Violet Potter."
Harry gently took her hand and shook it, smiling slightly in spite of the situation, "Harry Potter, nice to meet you."
"Pppotter?" she stuttered, "Are we…related?" she asked hopefully.
"That's a tough question to answer," Harry replied, before evasively changing the subject, "Wicked scar you go there by the way."
Regaining her composure, she answered, "It's okay I guess," flattening her bangs a bit to hide the scar.
Harry looked around and found that they were pretty much alone where they were and leaned closer to her, "It's nice to not be alone," he whispered, brushing back his fringe and showing off a mirror image of the curse scar.
Her eyes went to the scar, back to his face, back to the scar then went really wide. "But Dumbledore said I was the only one…is that a curse scar," she finished suspiciously.
"It is," he said seriously, "Fate has it in for both of us," then added humorlessly, "but I think I win this week."
Violet responded to this by raising an eyebrow and snorting at him, "I've been entered into the Tri-Wizard Tournament as the fourth champion, am being forced to compete against my will and most of the school believes I'm an attention seeking bitch," she said in a morbid 'beat that' voice.
Harry just smiled sadly at her and shook his head, "I'm not sure exactly what happened to me, but I do know that I dueled and killed Voldemort then woke up here in the past, for me, in what I can only assume is another dimension where He has yet to be resurrected, let alone defeated." Shaking his head at the absurdity of the situation he muttered "Damned magical oaths!"
Violet was a bright girl, despite what some said and she quickly put together what Harry had just said with his comment about them being related, his name and his scar, then her eyes went wide, "You're…you're me? Like from another dimension where I was born a…you?" she said half in confusion.
"Maybe; dimensional traveling and magic always gives me a headache," he said to himself, "When's your birthday?"
"July 31st," Harry nodded as if he expected that, "1979."
"Yeah, wait…1979?" She nodded, "I was born July 31st 1980! We're not the same person from different dimensions…I don't exist in this dimension and you didn't exist in mine."
"So what does that make us then Harry?" she asked in trepidation.
"I guess we're kinda like family, but not really," he answered slowly, "at least it seems like some things didn't change…I had to compete in the tournament too…right before Voldemort was resurrected."
Having been shocked far too often as of late, Violet reacted to this news by looking up at the sky and cussing out fate, destiny, magic and Aberforths goat, in a similar manor to what Harry had done moments before. When she'd finished, she blushed slightly at Harry and said, "you're right, it does help." The pair sat in awkward silence for a few moments, making no move to enter the castle, nor retreat from it.
Eventually Violet broke the silence, "So, Dumbledore then?" Resignedly, Harry nodded, all the while trying to figure out just how much to tell the old man about his future.
Before he'd made any concrete decisions about what to say, the pair found themselves in front of the headmasters Gargoyle.
"Lemon Drops," Violet said and without slowing, walked right through the now open hallway and up the stairs. Harry, decided at that moment that a second chance was exactly what he needed. Given the information on Voldemort from his own dimension, he was going to do everything within his power to end the threat before it began, fate, the time stream and whatever other forces of nature dictated existence, be damned!
A slow smile appeared on his face, he had a younger sister, kind of, since she was born the year before him, in an alternate dimension. The smile became a smirk as he realized the implication of this, because if he'd learned anything from the Weasley's, it was their motto: What good is a little sister if you don't tease her, beat any bloke who looks at her, and generally be a pain in her arse. That thought in mind as he ascended the stairs towards the headmasters office, he casually cast several spells to mask his aura, make him invisible and completely silent.
"Ahh, Ms. Potter," Dumbledore's voice rang out as the pair entered the room, he paused for a microsecond and frowned slightly before the expression was gone once again, "What may I do for you today?"
"I was out walking by the lake when I came across somebody lying, unconscious," she looked over her shoulder to where she felt Harry standing and was visibly startled to not see him. "Harry?" she called out, moving to the door and looking down the stairway before moving back towards the headmaster. "I'm sorry, he was just behind…" she trailed off as Harry's head appeared just above the headmasters shoulder, grinning a Cheshire grin at her. "There," she said pointing at him, only for his head to disappear before Dumbledore could even turn around. He appeared over the other shoulder as the headmaster was turned away from him and stuck out his tongue at her before once again disappearing.
"Are you feeling alright Ms. Potter?" Dumbledore asked carefully, "You've had a stressful few days with all of the excitement of the tournament and being thrust into the middle of it."
"No," she exclaimed in frustration, "He's here; he's just invisible right now." She growled as Harry again made his head appear floating just above Dumbledore, "I'm not crazy!" she demanded, the tone of her voice changing from exasperated to desperate causing Harry to stop his fun immediately, or most of it.
"She's right," he whispered into Dumbledore's ear, "I'm just invisible." This revelation had two effects. Violet scowled at him, and Dumbledore jumped from his chair, drawing his wand. Harry reappeared, smirking unconcernedly at the both of them.
"Hi," he said to Dumbledore casually, "I'm Harry Potter, the boy who lived, dimensional traveler, two time defeater of Tom Riddle, the man who destroyed his seven Horcruxes. You may know me as Link, the heir of the Marauders; then again, you probably don't as I suppose I'm a Link to the past." Harry snickered at the pair as they both stared at him wearing identical dumbfounded looks on their faces.
