Author's Note:

Okay.

This came about some time after a comment was made on the AO3 posting of 'Potters Echoes to Time Unbending.' That comment came from cloakable on Chapter 32:

"Wow, Fate clearly hates Harry, even now. All of Magical Britain is calling him the Young Stallion, and he's got Bella chasing his magic staff."

Well, that went and triggered off a backgrounded process from my mind's superuser-invoked /etc/init.d/inspiration daemon (for you Linux people out there,) and it percolated for a while. Actually, for more than a while. I think I need more caffeine or another chocolate donut or something.

So, I made a funny in reply (well, I thought it was funny…) and shuffled the thought into a holding pattern in the back of my mind as I proceeded to write more chapters for that story and post other stories. After those several other chapters had been written, 'Like Tenfold Shields' having come into existence, and so on, and after posting Chapter 36 of Potters Echoes I decide to look around at the various comments. I found that comment again. The mental ATC pulled that comment's reply out and directed it to land, and well – here is the result of that inspiration.

Fate's got some explainin' to do. Harry wants some answers. This being Harry, well, he probably should be careful.

What's Up with That?

Harry Potter looked around. The last thing he remembered was wheezing for breath in bed with a giant rack of potions on a shelf nearby. This definitely was not his bed and he was surely not gasping for breath. In fact, he was having no problems.

Was he dead?

It had been a century since he'd found himself in circumstances like this – in an ethereal place filled with white spaces and calmness, peaceful and still. It wasn't something trite like waking up somewhere like King's Cross Station after getting hit by a Voldemort-thrown Killing Curse and meeting Dumbledore for a nice if confusing chat. It looked like a park, actually. A pretty nice and relaxing park, too.

Harry squinted up at the biggest tree he'd ever seen, realizing that he didn't have the glasses he'd worn his entire life. Even after he discovered that Healer abilities could remove the need for glasses, they'd been part of his image for so long that he kept them anyway. For the last fifty or so years, he'd had his vision corrected and worn glasses with lenses that had no prescription ground into them. It really wasn't that big of a deal to not have glasses on his face, but he did feel a bit odd without them like he was missing something he needed to have with him.

As for the tree, it was a pretty damn big tree. It was big and tall enough for four more Potter Manors and maybe another Grimmauld Place, too. Harry could see that there was a wide pathway of smooth bricks all around the tree, with offshoots leading to presumably different destinations in wherever this place was. He still had to figure where 'here' was and there wasn't a lot around to help him with that. It looked like no place that he'd ever heard of, either.

He didn't feel like he was in any danger in any event and at his age, he was glad for that. Harry had gotten over feeling like he needed to do something about those kinds of situations personally a long time ago. After the third kid was born, Hermione had practically beat it into him. He had wisely kept his mouth firmly shut when she ranted that he wasn't as young as he used to be. Harry might have a comfortable couch, but that didn't mean he wanted to sleep on it again. He was familiar enough with it, thank you very much.

Not only was he not as young as he used to be, he also couldn't run as fast either, and she'd known it too. Just to make sure he knew it, she had demonstrated without breaking a sweat. It took him a while to wake up after that, since Hermione was a bit more perturbed about the subject than usual and put more power into her spells.

It had made an impression and her point quite well. Harry had resolved that if anyone had a problem with it, they could talk to his wife. If they made it out alive, then things would go back to normal. Oddly, no one was brave enough or stupid enough after the first couple of idiots to try having their say about the matter woke up with odd trembles in their movements and nervous tics in their faces.

They had the best-behaved kids in their neighborhood. When asked about it by other kids, they looked at whoever asked and said, "Are you stupid?"

Harry chuckled at the thoughts he had, but it really wasn't helping him figure out where he was aside from next to a really big tree. He saw the outline of possibly a big building in the distance, obscured by the fog. The other paths weren't as wide or looked to lead to anything as grandiose, so he shrugged and decided to find out what it was.

It took a good bit of walking to get there and Harry was surprised that he made it with no problems. It had been years since he could say that and he tried not to think about how many. The building loomed up over him on the other side of a large street that looked suitable for high-speed motor traffic in both directions. However, there was nothing at all on the road for as far as he could see in either direction. It faded off into blankness after a few hundred feet.

"That's not creepy at all. Nope. Not one bit," he muttered to himself. Harry cautiously crossed the road. He didn't see any crosswalks or bobbies about to accost him for jaywalking, and hoped that he wasn't about to be run down by a thundering herd of suddenly appearing lorries the moment he took a couple of steps onto the cool asphalt. Dim memories of cartoon characters suffering that very fate poked at him as he hustled to the other side. Harry couldn't help a sigh of relief when he stepped up onto the sidewalk.

The building itself was just a building. Large, but nothing particularly special about it. Just a standard office building, double doors, windows to presumably offices inside, ledges that looked like ledges anywhere in Britain – aside from the buildings that deliberately stood out by design. Grey stone, head height iron fencing around it with ornate points every so often, thin hedges behind the fencing for whatever reason.

Harry felt bad for whoever had to maintain that hedge. It had to be a pain to trim with that fence in the way.

There was a large sign gently swinging from a wrought-iron hanger by the set of double doors. The script looked like something out of the Victorian Era, but for all that it was relatively easy to read. It said, "Fate, Destiny, Kismat, and Associates," which made Harry do a double-take and raise an eyebrow.

"That sounds like a law firm."

Harry chuckled to himself for a moment as he looked around some more, until his eyes fell on the sign for the offices on his side of the street. It read "Dewey, Cheatum, Skroohum, and Howe, Attorneys at Law." Below that was a sign proudly proclaiming, "Proudly serving since 27 B.C. for your legal needs!"

"I am so not going in there."

A bench appeared out of nowhere and Harry looked at it before shrugging and having a seat. This allowed him to look himself over, which he hadn't really done yet. He had been wondering why he felt different and that long walk had raised the question to a higher priority. A good glance at his hands revealed that all the age spots, wrinkles, scars and Auror-related injuries and burns had disappeared. Tugging up his left trouser leg, he saw that the prosthesis from a decade ago was gone and his natural leg had somehow returned.

He tugged up his shirt and saw that instead of a rather thick set of love handles, he had the toned and cut abs of a professional Quidditch player. Harry hadn't played professionally, but between his pickup games, the Auror job duties, and all the stuff that came with defeating Voldemort and a slew of later dark wizards, he'd been in excellent shape for a few decades before he retired.

Somehow, he was back to his younger self. Maybe mid-twenties? He didn't have a mirror to see if he had any grey hairs, which had started showing up in his mid-thirties.

What was going on here?

There was a creak from across the street, which drew his attention. Harry looked up to see the doors open at Fate, Destiny, Kismat, and Associates, and a man step out. The man looked like every stereotypically British butler or majordomo in every period piece Harry had ever been subjected to by Hermione. She loved the things, but Harry knew better than to say he would vastly prefer something else to watch.

It hadn't helped him in those matters that Kreacher enjoyed them, too. That was one of the biggest surprises Harry had dealt with in a long time. The two practically had their own space-expanded viewing room stuffed with movies, once Kreacher had the concept of movies explained to him. After watching the first one, the old elf had decided he really liked them. Then he collected movies like Hermione collected books. After the old house-elf had passed on, they kept his movie room in immaculate shape. There was even a magical painting of Kreacher opposite the television.

It had taken a few weeks to figure out how to get the vast library of movies to play themselves to get the portrait to stop grumbling and grumping. Then the room had to be soundproofed so they could sleep, but it was worth it. Unfortunately for them, the new elves had picked up Kreacher's habit. More movies appeared and soon the room branched out into music albums of all genres.

It took Harry a moment, lost in his recollections, to realize that the man was trying to get his attention.

"Oh! I'm sorry. I was lost in thought!" Harry called from across the street.

"Quite understandable, Mister Potter! Would you come in, please? You have an appointment to meet."

Harry wondered how the stranger knew his name. The man (Butler? Majordomo? Doorman?) said nothing else but just waited for him. The younger man heaved himself up out of the rather comfortable bench and crossed the street. There was still some trepidation and he looked both ways twice before moving. He greeted the man with a handshake.

"So, how do you know me and who are you, anyway? And where is this?"

The man gave him a more or less perfunctory smile.

"My name is Seasnán, Mister Potter. I screen people that need to be here – I know everyone that shows up. 'Here' is," and he waved to the sign gently swinging above them, "well, you can read it for yourself. One of the managing Partners needs to see you. Soonest, too."

Harry wasn't too sure about any of this, but figured that standing around doing nothing wasn't going to answer any questions he had. He nodded and followed the man into a well-appointed office. There wasn't much time to look around as his guide headed straight for a door in the back of the large room. Harry did notice that the secretary was quite fetching. She gave him a bright smile measured in the gigawatts and he stopped dead for a moment in shock.

What's this? Don't tell me hormones are waking up again? Honestly, Harry.

A certain corner of his mind sounded peevish and didn't sound like himself. It sounded very familiar, too. With his luck, those irritating hormones probably were. If he looked like he was in his twenties again, then he was probably going to act like he was in his twenties again. Without Hermione around to make sure he didn't get into trouble, he was going to make a fool of himself.

Harry sighed. It wasn't like he hadn't done that before.

He looked around, seeing several nondescript offices with people doing whatever they did in the course of whatever work they did in an office building like this. It was only quick glimpses as they passed by, but Harry was struck by the observation that whatever they used for telephones, it wasn't like anything he had ever seen – and he'd had to deal with some of the things the Weasley Twins had created!

There had been times he regretted donating the Triwizard Tournament winnings to them, but he'd said nothing. It wouldn't have helped since Hermione helped the redheaded menaces (spoken with all affection, he reflected) with some of them and he knew better than to say something. She might have used him for product testing for doubting her motives.

It was a few minutes walk, which was surprising since it simply did not look like the building was big enough for the route they took. It was a fast walk, too, and that in itself made Harry really start wondering. It was that 'we have to fix things before they really get messed up' type of walk.

Harry sighed, again. It wasn't like he hadn't done that before, either. Usually after he made a fool of himself.

Soon enough in the power walk, he was ushered into a sizable office that made his Head Auror office in the DMLE look like a shabby broom closet. Harry gaped at the view the floor to ceiling window offered, which looked to him to be a mountain view of a setting sun. This confused him even more, since when he'd walked into the building just ten minutes ago he would have sworn that the sun was directly overhead.

His attention was drawn to a huge wall of certificates, diplomas, trophies and other things before he looked out the window again. Harry's jaw dropped as he saw two full moons was sailing high in the darkened sky.

"Yeah, don't look at the window too many times. It'll just mess with you to be funny. It's not that funny."

Harry spun to see an older woman seated behind the expansive desk. The desk itself was jet black with a glossy top. The top had an odd pattern that undulated through green, blue, red, orange, and white flames and frankly made him feel a little nauseous. He looked up at the woman and gulped.

She looked like a professional version of Bellatrix Lestrange.

For the first time, Harry realized that he didn't have a wand. He debated if he had a chance to dash out the door before he was captured, then realized, Wait! Bellatrix was thrown through the Veil decades ago! Who is this? Where the hell am I anyway?

"I'm glad you're here. We have some things that need straightening out. Have a seat, Mister Potter. To answer your questions in reverse order: You are in the Headquarters building for Fate, Destiny, Kismat, and Associates, I am Fate, Owner and Managing Partner, and that means I'm not Bellatrix Lestrange. That young lady," Harry snorted at the thought of the insane witch being called a lady much less acting like one, "just happened to have the genetic mixture to look like me. I had a few things to say to her when she arrived, believe me."

Harry wished he could control the gaping he was doing. He didn't remember having spoken out loud and the idea that his thoughts were apparent to the woman behind the desk worried him. As for the gaping it looked like he was not going to have any luck any time soon. She pointed at the seat and Harry fumbled his way into it. It was quite possibly the most comfortable seat he'd ever sat in and that counted Dumbledore's overstuffed armchairs he had been so fond of.

"Er… 'straightening out,' you said?"

He made sure not to look at the desktop since he didn't want to get sick and missed the file folder with his name on it. She opened it and flipped through it for a few minutes. It was fairly thick, with plenty of pages. That didn't seem like a good thing to Harry.

"The problem that we have, Mister Potter, is that you've had to deal with someone else's Fate during your life. We didn't find out until recently."

"What?"

"Yes. Quite simply, your whole life you've been using the assigned Fatepoints of someone else, thanks to the bureaucratic error of someone in the Destinies Mapping Office. We are still trying to determine if that error was deliberate or not, but we're strongly leaning toward deliberate. Some of the things that happened to you – good or bad – should never have happened."

"Wh-What should have happened?"

"For one, your parents should have raised you with your aunt and uncle helping out from time to time. For two, Voldemort shouldn't have risen to power – actually, Tom Riddle's Fate was supposed to be a wildly successful career in wizarding musical theater, but that didn't happen."

The image of Tom Riddle singing and dancing on a stage somewhere leapt up in his mind and had to be repressed.

"For three, Hermione should have married you – wait, actually that did happen. Sorry, wrong dimension, wrong universal instance. There's been a lot of divergences there." The woman (Fate?) made a mark with a green pen that left flaming marks.

Harry was feeling confused. The corner of his mind that sounded remarkably like Hermione hadn't said anything either.

"You should have been allocated more children, however. Teddy Lupin wasn't supposed to be your godson, but we note that you did a very good job there. Remus Lupin and Nymphadora" there was a rumble of thunder from somewhere, but the woman ignored it, "Tonks should have lived with nine more children and two of the others – fraternal twins, in fact – would have been your god-children."

There was a passing grimace for Remus having to deal with a pregnant Tonks ten times, but the woman's voice interrupted the thought.

"Also, you were intended to found another magical school for advanced children, but that didn't happen."

She stopped as she found a note in the file. One eyebrow rose slowly, and her eyes flicked up to him. Harry was wondering what she found.

"We have no idea where the 'Young Stallion' bit came from, however. I don't think any of our more… twisted… writers could have come up with that."

Harry blushed deeply. Kateira had laughed about that even on her deathbed, and it wasn't until she had passed that he found that that she had made several of the Herd promise to keep the name alive. How she got it into the papers a week later, he never found out. From the look on the woman's face, his file mentioned that in some detail. He wanted to ask, but she was on to something else.

"Instead you had to deal with the Fatepoints of a magical being called Harold Potier. For now, we've determined that a disgruntled employee has been changing assignments and details of those assignments willy-nilly for the last century and a half. That's why I mentioned 'strongly leaning toward deliberate.' That person has been discovered, disciplined most severely, and reassigned with loss of benefits and time in grade for cause."

Harry thought about that, his ire rising. Suddenly he jumped up.

"You mean I've been Fate's Bitch for no reason?! What the hell, woman? What's up with that shite?"

A glacial eyebrow rose and the desktop flamed up under the glass. Harry gulped as the Bellatrix lookalike speared him with a freezing glance. He decided that he really needed to sit down before he got himself in worse trouble than he'd apparently been shuffled off to in life. The woman didn't have the insane glimmer in her eye that Bellatrix always had, but from the look in the black depths his actions and words hadn't helped prevent that possibility. He sat his arse down before he got knocked down or worse. She looked like she could do it without breaking a sweat and sip a cup of tea over his broken body.

"Sorry! I got a bit overwrought. I apologize for my intemperate language."

The woman nodded after a bit, but still looked far from impressed with his language.

"I can see that, especially since I've been dealing with the aftermath and other souls with the same problems as you. I possibly could have phrased that differently, considering your case files. I am the manifestation of Fate. I do not hate you – although some unspecified others in some cases deserve my ire – and wished to see you succeed."

He gulped and nodded. The piercing look in her eye worried him. Harry felt like he was being weighed and found wanting in several ways. To try to distract her, he seized on something she mentioned.

"Files? As in multiple?"

"Yes, Mister Potter. I mentioned wrong dimensions, and wrong universal instances a moment ago. It's the same with you as it is with your wife – well, one of your wives in many of those instances – but that's beside the point."

Harry started to ask a question about that, but from the look in the now-narrowed eyes he decided that it was not a good idea. He was still feeling like he was found wanting in something and had pushed his luck enough as it were.

"Well – what do we do about it?"

She stood up and walked over to a file cabinet that held a drawer much, much longer than the depth of the cabinet would seem to indicate and pulled out a twenty-seven-inch thick binder. She placed it on the corner of the desk without a hint of effort and flipped open the front cover. The writing on the page was distinct, but quite tiny. Harry goggled at it in sheer stupefaction. Some of the books in the Hogwarts library had been thick, but he didn't think he'd ever seen one quite that size – much less opened one.

"There are a range of possibilities in regard to the actions that can be taken. Before we make a decision, you need to read this thoroughly, consider all the possibilities presented to you and return to me. I have quarters assigned to you. Take all the time you need but read everything. Everything that you need to know is in here, prepared specifically for you. I warn you, do not skip a single page. You will regret it if you do."

Fate pinned him with another glance, making him silently promise not to skip a single page no matter how long it took him to read every page. She didn't move until he nodded.

She returned to her seat, pressed a button obviously calling someone for him, and shooed him out the door with the ridiculously huge binder. Harry struggled to walk out the door and wondered if it would have been that size if he'd kept his temper with her. From the look on the face of the girl that was here to guide him, probably not.

Still, it sounded like he at least had options to do whatever he was supposed to be doing.

He stumbled down the hallway after the girl, dropping the binder on his foot only once with a muffled curse and a few minutes of hopping around.

Behind him, there was an exasperated sigh coming from the office as the next person was ushered in.

A/N: For the record, my reply to cloakable's comment was, "I imagine when he meets Fate after a long life, he's gonna ask her 'what's up with that,' and find out that there was a mix-up in the tasking orders for all the trouble. All the problems he suffered had to do with a paperwork snafu in the Destinies Mapping office, thanks to a junior staffer more interested in chasing skirts than doing the office work. Everything was supposed to go to a man named 'Harold Potier,' instead. Understandable mistake, really, but it wasn't found until after Harry went on to his Next Great Adventure."

Like I said, I thought it was funny.