Chapter Twelve

"He's back! Professor Dumbledore, he's back…"

"Who's back, child?" Dumbledore asked, but his ashen expression seemed to imply that he knew very well who Jim was talking about.

"Voldemort. He's - he's been resurrected. Trelawney resurrected him."

"Sybill?" The old man's bushy eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "I never would have thought…"

"Jim? Ron, Harry?" It was Cedric's concerned voice. "What happened to you three?"

"He's back," Jim stammered. "Voldemort's back."

"...in the bloody blazes is this child going on about?" Fudge's unwelcome input.

"Get then to the hospital wing," Dumbledore ordered. Jim's eyesight was going fuzzy and dark. "It appears the thing we've been dreading most has happened, Cornelius. Voldemort has returned…"

The first thing Jim felt when he woke was numbness.

He tried to move his hands, but they did not respond. His attempts to regain control of his body became more fervent even while telling himself to calm down. He tried to raise his voice and nothing came out. No, this was a bad nightmare. He couldn't be dead. He thrashed and wailed…

"Oh, shut up," a familiar voice said irritably.

"You reckon he's come to, then?" Another familiar voice spoke sarcastically.

Jim snapped his eyes open and groggily turned his head to the side. He was tucked into pristine white sheets, according to the blurry image his non-bespectacled eyes gave him. Next to him, in identical white beds, lay Harry and Ron. Harry's midsection was wrapped in bandages until he looked like a grumpy snowman, while Ron had the same white bandages all over his shoulder.

"You've been drugged to the point you're higher than a Dutch cosmonaut," Harry explained. "I'm guessing you were shocked at not being able to move. Well, don't. You don't want to go against Pomfrey's instructions, anyway."

"Ron? Harry?" Jim spoke, his words slurred but no less panicked. "Are you both alright?"

"What does it look like?" Harry sniffed.

"Shut up, you bloody pansy," Ron taunted. "You were wearing a dragonhide vest just in case. The knife didn't even go that deep."

"You think anything that doesn't have an exit wound is 'pansy'," Harry growled. "Plus, abdominal injuries are the most painful. At least you can move your other arm without hurting all over. Everything I do, meanwhile, makes me hurt. Can't even sit up or lie down or even breathe without hurting like a bitch."

"Hey, Harry…" Jim hesitated. "You were hit by the killing curse."

"It missed," Harry said. "I was playing dead. I moved just enough that it would miss… a terrifying experience, by the way. Literally a hair's breadth away from death."

"You were playing dead?" Jim said incredulously. "And you didn't think to help me until the bitch stabbed me in the arm?"

"I couldn't have taken her by surprise until she had my back turned to me!" Harry huffed irritably. "She was one paranoid woman. Kept her eye on me the whole time, except when she went to collect her blood."

"Playing dead," Ron snorted to himself.

"Shut up. I was already weakened and didn't have the confidence to take on a full Inner Circle member rather than just Wormtail," Harry snarled, and cast an annoyed side-eye at Jim. "And, I was weakened. You know why? Because somehow, an acromantula literally fell on my head and bit me and I had to burn a lot of my magic to make sure I didn't die from the poison."

"Sorry," Jim mumbled.

"It's alright," Harry sighed. For a moment, nothing could be heard except the ticking of the grandfather clock. "I'm sorry you had to experience that. Ron was supposed to be the only one to go. We probably should've let you in on our plans."

"Yeah," Jim said, but there was no accusation in his voice.

"I think it's safe to say we all fucked up."

"Yeah." Jim pondered for a moment. "Ron, could you really have defeated Voldemort all by yourself?"

"No," Ron said honestly, surprising Jim. "Our plan didn't involve fighting Voldemort - just disabling whoever was doing the ritual so Voldemort couldn't be resurrected. It was just a big fuckup that you and Harry got teleported there instead of me, I guess. I was dressed for the occasion but neither of you were."

"Sorry," Jim mumbled again.

"Stop being sorry. It's not completely your fault, anyway. We deserve part of the blame," Harry said soothingly. Then he turned to Ron. "Do you think Voldemort is stronger in this dimension than our original one?"

"I was just thinking that, actually," Ron grimaced. "I thought I'd at least be on equal footing with him, even without all my UFO advantages. After all, we even switched the bones of his father with those from the next grave over, so he should have been weakened."

"I have a theory."

"Oh good, another one of your theories," Ron sighed and Harry rolled his eyes.

"In our original world, Voldemort was banished after encountering whatever magic was triggered by my mother's sacrifice," Harry spoke. "We still don't really know what kind of magic, but we do know it was ancient sacrificial magic and those are guaranteed to be powerful. In this world, however, Lily Evans is alive, meaning the same sacrificial magic was never invoked. Voldemort was still banished somehow, in some way we don't know of. However, he wasn't as gravely… injured, for lack of a better term."

"So you're saying he retained more of his power when he was banished than in our world," Ron said darkly, and Harry nodded once. "Merlin. I can see why everyone was so scared of him. We were really lucky, weren't we?"

"We were," Harry said shortly.

"If in his prime he was even more powerful…" Ron shuddered. "I hate to think how strong he would have been if he didn't split his soul and get turned into a ghost."

"Split his soul?" Jim interrupted.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, then sighed. "You may as well join this conversation too, Professor," Harry said.

Jim was about to ask what the hell they were talking about, when Dumbledore appeared out of thin air from behind a pillar. Usually, Dumbledore took pleasure on sneaking up on his students, but this time, his face was hard and cold. "My apologies," he said with a genuine smile that notified the three boys that his coldness was not directed at them. "So my suspicions were correct. Tom really did create Horcruxes… I was a fool to think that there were lines that even he would not cross."

"What are Horcruxes?" Jim asked.

"Horcruxes…" Dumbledore sighed, sitting on the foot of Jim's bed. "The process of creating a Horcrux involves some of the vilest magic we know of. It is, in summary, a soul-container; it is an object, usually of sentimental significance to the owner, that contains a piece of the owner's soul. The process of creating a Horcrux involves forcibly parting young women of their… ah, purity, then their life. Even after the ritual is complete, you would be subject to what most would perceive as a cursed half-life of sorts; when a piece of your soul is torn off, so is a piece of your humanity, and you would end up lacking in empathy, emotion and personality."

"Not that anyone who makes Horcruxes had an abundance of them before," Ron commented.

Dumbledore chuckled dryly. "You are correct, dear Ronald. If that is your true name."

"It is, actually," Ron said, though his eyes became tense. "At least the Ronald part of it is real."

"How much do you know?" Harry asked flatly.

"I didn't know anything until I heard you talking about your 'original dimension'," Dumbledore said neutrally. "I had my suspicions. The two of you wouldn't be the strangest people I know - not even the first to come from a different dimension, if you will."

"Mm," Harry responded. "I'll tell you one thing, though, free of charge." His face turned cold. "We didn't come here so we could be dragged into your meddling."

Dumbledore's expression was pained, but only for a brief moment before he got it under control. "I assure you that I am not aiming to seek profit in any way," Dumbledore said, before adding, "excluding what I profit from a lack of a Dark Lord."

"Your assurances are always so vague," Harry sneered.

"I'll leave the three of you to continue your, I hope, speedy recovery," Dumbledore said, standing up. The hospital wing was completely silent for a long time. Jim wondered why Harry seemed to be so… aggressive against Dumbledore as soon as the latter admitted he knew of their identities. They had used to be best friends, as close to an equal relationship as a student and headmaster could have.

"How did you manage to lose against Trelawney?" Ron asked. "Surely she wasn't that much stronger than Wormtail. If I think about it, I've never actually seen her perform any magic worth mentioning."

"Ah," Harry's face darkened. "I agree, I don't think she's much stronger than Wormtail, magically. Her secret - well, it's not even a secret, honestly - lies in the subject that she teaches."

"Only the most useless subject," Jim snorted, thinking back to the beginning of the previous year, where he dropped Divination after a month of having his death predicted every single day.

"That's what I thought too," Harry said bitterly. "Until it seemed to me that she seemed to be able to see my movements ahead of time."

A stunned silence. "No way," Ron said, after a moment. "You're telling me she's divining what you'll do next."

"She was dodging my attacks before they even came," Harry growled. "Smug bitch. I realized that too late. I thought I had her, but she managed to stab me instead."

"How are you supposed to beat someone like that?" Jim swallowed. Divination would never be the same to him.

"Brute force," Harry said simply. "Even if you see it coming, you can only dodge if you're fast enough. Next time I see that bitch I'll just torch everything in a thirty-foot radius."

"Hey, Ron?" Jim asked hesitantly. Would this be a touchy subject? "How will it affect your fighting if you don't have an arm?"

"It's alright, Jim," Harry sniggered. "Ron's not completely 'armless yet."

Ron groaned and Jim smiled slightly. "I'm going to pretend you never said anything," Ron said matter-of-factly. "As for your question, I'll probably make myself a prosthetic like Trelawney's hand. That's the closest thing to a real limb I can think of."

"It's also a piece of incredibly dark magic," Pomfrey's voice carried over to them, as she brought over fresh bandages.

"Unfortunate, but I'd rather a silver hand than something as ridiculous as Moody's peg-leg," Ron replied.

"If you didn't vanish your arm, none of this would be a problem," Pomfrey said disapprovingly. "We're trained to reverse blood-freezing curses, you know, as well as many other types of tissue damage."

"I couldn't really ask Voldemort to give me a second so I could pack my own arm, could I?" Ron said irritably. "And for the last time, Voldemort's not above using blood curses. If I left even a drop of my blood, he could hurt me even if I were on the other side of the world."

Pomfrey sighed. "I'm sorry you had to go through all this," she murmured. "I wish you'd been able to experience your teenage years before you had to go through so much trauma."

So Madam Pomfrey didn't know of the two's identities. Judging by the way Ron and Harry didn't respond, they didn't care for her to know, either. It wasn't that they couldn't trust her - especially since Madam Pomfrey was oath-bound to keep all her patients' conditions private, even those that weren't necessarily relevant to the healing process - they just didn't care to repeat their tales all the time. They weren't exactly happy stories, after all.

"Did we have visitors while we were asleep?" Ron enquired.

"No, you did not," Pomfrey replied. "I chased them all away. For the most part, those wishing to see you were friends and family, but there were also members of the press."

"Oh, dear," Harry said. "In that case, thank you."

"You're very welcome," Pomfrey said with a slight smile. "For today I want you to have some quiet rest. I'll allow visitors for all of you tomorrow. You've all been through a lot, both physically and emotionally. I think you'll be better off with some time to recover."

"You're the expert," Ron sighed.

"I know I am," Pomfrey smirked.

"Oh! Good morning, Jim."

Suddenly, Jim was engulfed in a comforting smell and sensation. Once she pulled away, Jim could see Lily Potter's beaming face. Beside her was James Potter senior, who grinned and ruffled Jim's hair. Jim smiled at the two of them.

"Don't go overboard," Madam Pomfrey warned.

"Of course not, Poppy," Lily said seriously. "I'll make sure James doesn't horse around."

"Why do I always get suspected?" James Senior muttered under his breath.

"Where are Harry and Ron?" Jim asked, and the two adults looked at each other.

"Poppy says they escaped early in the morning - and goodness, she wasn't happy about that - but I haven't seen them so far," Lily replied. "I think they'll be fine, if they have the energy to escape Poppy's clutches. How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

"Fine, actually," Jim shrugged, testing out his fingers and toes; none of his movements gave him the slight pains that they did before, lingering aftereffects of the Cruciatus. "So, uh… what's happened in the last two days?"

James grimaced. "Dumbledore announced that Voldemort was back. Fudge is vehemently denying it. I was threatened with a demotion if I agreed with you and Dumbledore."

"Great," Jim said sarcastically. "It'll be second year all over again."

"Speaking of, kid, they brought that back up," James said, rolling his eyes. "Proof that you're crazy, apparently. This and your newest 'revelation'. This is supposedly all one big conspiracy to draw attention away from the fact that you are indeed Slytherin's Heir."

"Welcome to the Daily Oracle," Lily said bitterly. "The number-one source of information for Magical Britain. God, I miss the BBC."

"Hey," James said softly, and Jim looked up at him. "I don't really want to force this on you, but as both the Head of the Auror Department and your father, I need to know what happened to you after the third event."

"Okay," Jim said, taking a deep breath. "Well. We all knew the cup was a portkey - it was supposed to teleport you to the podium. Well, it instead went to a graveyard - I'm not sure where - but Voldemort implied his father was buried there."

As Jim talked, James Senior's face became progressively darker, while Lily's eyes became wide and horrified. She covered the lower portion of her face with her hands when Jim mentioned how Harry had remained under the Cruciatus for at least thirty seconds. Jim also described in detail how Ron had arrived, got hit with a blood-freezing curse, and then voluntarily amputated his own arm without any hesitation.

"Your friends don't sound like normal fifteen year-olds," James said, at the end. "But I'm glad they were on your side. Who knows what might have happened if they weren't there…"

"I'd be dead," Jim said softly. "The first victim of Voldemort's new empire."

"Those boys must be very, very good if they could hold their own against Voldemort himself, even if only temporarily," James shook his head. Jim raised an eyebrow at his mother, who shook her head to the side very slightly. He didn't know. "Weren't they also the same ones who apprehended Barty Crouch Jr. at the world cup? I wonder if they actually would like to join the Auror force…"

"Anyway, Jim," Lily said before her husband could go on a long rant about the merits of joining said force. "Poppy said you'll be allowed to go around noon, once you complete your last checkup. Dad and I will be waiting for you, okay? The Headmaster said you can finish your term a couple of weeks early under the guise of 'recovery'. We're going to France together."

Jim smiled. "I'd like that. Thank you."

His parents smiled and exited the hospital ward. Everything was silent as soon as the great doors closed, except for the faint, rhythmical sound of Madam Pomfrey doing paperwork in her office. In the quiet, Jim had only one lingering thought in his mind.

What the hell prompted me to say 'spydum'?

"Well, I'm glad that at least you're not hurt," Katie laughed nervously. "I suppose all that unnecessary preparation you did came in useful, in the end."

"Yeah," Ron said easily, pinning his fork down with a gloved left hand and cutting his sausage. "It could have been a lot worse. A lot of things could have gone wrong."

Harry watched from the opposite side of the table. Ron's acting was very convincing, but he could tell Katie didn't buy it. Probably because Ron had started wearing tight-fitting, black gloves, starting today. Not many others noticed, and even if they did, they probably didn't see the connection. Some probably dismissed it outright, instead preferring to believe the Oracle over Jim Potter's claims.

Fleur, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. Harry left the table and had gone so far as to inquire Madame Maxime of her whereabouts, but even she did not know where her favorite student had run off to. Harry had checked the Room of Requirements, but it was empty and unused. He'd checked the Chamber of Secrets, though he knew that Fleur couldn't have gotten down there since she did not speak Parseltongue. He'd checked the astronomy tower where they'd spent a few nights stargazing, but she wasn't there either.

He sighed and sat down on the parapets, his legs dangling over the edge. Up so high, the people below looked like ants and the wind threatened to topple him over the edge once or twice He felt high enough that if he listened really hard, he might be able to hear the clouds speak.

"I fucked up," he told the clouds.

And he did. He really should have told Jim what would have happened if he grabbed the cup. Sure, it wasn't as if Harry himself knew for certain; both Wormtail and Crouch Jr. were hidden away on Azkaban, so who else, if any, could have meddled with the portkey? But he should've known, and he should've told Jim. He would have looked like a massive dick if there was nothing wrong with the portkey in the end and Ron ended up winning the tournament, but it was better than risking the alternative.

The alternative, which had happened. His fault. His bloody fault.

At least nobody died this time, he thought grimly. But how long would it remain that way? Voldemort was back again, and he was even more powerful than in his own timeline. Even after having his ritual sabotaged and his horcruxes destroyed (not that he knew), he was still more powerful than the last Voldemort Harry had faced.

If his memory served him right, Voldemort would soon send emissaries to the acromantulas, the giants, the werewolves. The vampires had turned Voldemort down in his timeline and chose to remain neutral, but who knew? This Voldemort was much more powerful and perhaps the vampires might join him out of respect or fear.

The acromantulas were easily the biggest threat during the siege of Hogwarts. Their size, venom and sheer number was nothing short of terrifying, and they could easily climb over the defenses. Aragog would keep them in check until he died, but after that?

He could either attempt to eliminate the acromantula population, or he could attempt to reason with it. Exterminating the colony was an impossible task. Trying to reason with it was an even more impossible task. He had no idea what to do.

Giants were easy enough; giants respected power. They didn't eat humans to live, like acromantulas, so they didn't necessarily have to be in a permanently antagonistic relationship. Pick out the biggest, ugliest giant on the lot and beat the shit out of him, and then boom! You had a giant clan under your rule and more bitch-ugly giantesses wanting to mate with you than you could count. Harry was stronger than any giant, he was certain of that. He could probably gain the support of the giants if he tried.

What about werewolves? Werewolves had a bigger motive. They were constantly treated by the Ministry as third-class citizens, although most of them were very normal people twenty-seven days of each moon. But for that minor condition, which in most cases the people couldn't do anything about, it was near impossible for them to get jobs in the magical world, forbidden to enter the Muggle world to find a job there instead, marry someone, have children, or receive treatment at a public hospital. Not to mention, forbidden to attend Hogwarts.

They were fighting for freedom, for dignity. Their only enemy was really the Ministry and the stagnating political ideology - and Voldemort was opposed to that, so… the enemy of their enemy, and therefore Voldemort was their ally. Harry sincerely doubted the werewolves believed in that pureblood supremacy crap; they just wanted to get rid of the werewolf inferiority crap.

For that reason, Harry didn't really think he could convince the werewolves to join the light. It was one thing to kill Voldemort. Voldemort was a single man, and murder could be done by a single man in mere seconds. But changing Ministry policy? Mastering bureaucracy? Convincing the entire magical public that werewolves were in fact people and not mindless killing machines?

Could he really promise the werewolves something he doubted he could accomplish?

And the students. Oh, God, the students - how could he have forgotten? Kids still at school forced to follow their mother or father for fear of torture or death, both of themselves and their relatives. Draco Malfoy being a prime example, but also Crabbe and Goyle, Daphne Greengrass, Theodore Nott, probably Pansy Parkinson too.

How could he have been so stupid?

Maybe it was because he'd spent so long alone, so isolated, that it came to the point where he only really viewed Ron as his only friend. Because he watched other people lead happy lives and he couldn't bear to look at them longer, voluntarily turning his eyes away from everyone else. Maybe it was because of this, that…

"I'm no longer human," he said numbly.

Jim was right. Sirius was right. He only cared about his own glory and satisfaction, found namely in his fight against Voldemort. Only about revenge and satisfying his hatred. He didn't care about anyone around him. If he did, then he'd be trying to help them.

"'Arry?"

Harry whipped around, jerking his body so fast that he almost fell off the tower. It was Fleur, her lips pursed in concern and her silver hair blown to the side by the wind. Since it was the weekend, she wasn't wearing her school uniform, instead a sky-blue shirt and a pair of waist-high trousers. Even in the magical world, the French were a lot more fashionable and modern than the British.

"Fleur," Harry said.

"What happened?" She asked. Over the duration of her stay, her accent had become less noticeable.

"The darkest and most powerful wizard in modern history just came back to life," Harry smiled thinly. "And he's a lot more powerful than we expected."

Fleur remained silent for a moment. "So it's true, then? What Jim said is true?"

"Beyond a doubt," Harry said. "Unless that trophy was made of magic mushrooms."

"Magic mushrooms?"

"Never mind."

The wind's mourning tones allowed them to spend the silence without becoming awkward. Harry and Fleur stared at each other for a long time, drinking in every detail of each other. Harry had several new scars, excluding the one hidden under bandages. Several thin lines along his arms and one across his cheek.

"What are you going to do now?" Fleur finally asked.

"I haven't a clue," Harry said, spreading his arms wide. "But I know what you're going to do."

"What am I going to do?"

"You're going back to France and putting up the strongest wards on your house that you know of, and hire others to do the wards you don't know of," Harry said. "Then you're going to stay there and not come back to England. Preferably not until Voldemort is dead."

Fleur remained silent, but when she did speak, her words cut through Harry like a knife. "You're going to throw me away, just like that?"

"I'm not throwing you away."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Asking you to survive the oncoming war."

"If your side loses, then it will not matter if I am in France or not," Fleur said quietly. "I can stay by your side and help you."

"I don't think you know just how terrible Voldemort is," Harry replied. "In fact, I know you have no idea. See these injuries? They didn't come from Voldemort. They came from one of his followers." Fleur remained silent as Harry continued. "I didn't see you at breakfast this morning, so I don't think you noticed. But if you see Ron, take note of the fact that he's wearing gloves. It's because he's wearing a prosthetic now and doesn't want people to know about it."

Fleur glared at him, hard, and Harry was struck by a rippling wave of Veela allure. However, this time, it didn't entice him, plague him with envy. This time, it was raw anger. Fleur seemed to flicker between a human figure and a deadly, feathered, bipedal huntress.

"Tyranny was never defeated when the masses succumbed to fear," Fleur snarled. "You do not realize you are doing V-Voldemort's work for him? I do not care about his reputation, 'Arry. I will not rely on you to fix my future for me."

That's right. Why should she?

Why should she rely on him?

He, who lost track of his priorities?

"Fine," Harry said. "Then stay. And fight."

"When I die, I will die standing," Fleur said firmly.

Harry's lips twitched into a faint smile. "At least graduate from school first."

And that's 4th Year all finished. I hope you've all enjoyed the story so far. Beginning the next year, we will undoubtedly encounter everyone's least favorite HP character and the beginning of the war. I should make a few notes to clarify certain things:
There's a moment in Ch. 8 where Fleur addresses Harry as 'Arry Potter'. That's just a typo on my part. Fleur still doesn't know that Harry and Ron are dimension-travelers.
UFOs were created in the aftermath of Voldemort's reign. Unfortunately, there are no elite magical ninjas to call on in this world excluding the two protagonists.

Everyone's favorite part: power levels! To describe everyone's power levels, I shall be using a scale of my own invention. I'll be ranking everyone relative to 100, the average score for a 7th-year student at Hogwarts.

Voldemort (first war): 520
Voldemort (current): 480
Dumbledore (Grindelwald-era): 440
Harry Stark: 420
Ronald Stark: 405
Voldemort (old world): 400
Dumbledore (Headmaster): 390
James Potter (Auror Dpt.): 320
Bellatrix LeStrange: 310
Alastor Moody: 295
Lucius Malfoy: 280
Bill Weasley: 280
Sirius Black (after prison): 260
Nymphadora Tonks: 245
Tom Riddle (student): 180
Sybill Trelawney (villain): 140
James Potter Jr.: 100
Ginny Weasley: 80
Hermione Granger: 75
Gilderoy Lockhart: 10