A/N:
I posted this on AO3 ages ago but somehow forgot to crosspost here. Oops.
THIS IS MAINLY TIME-TRAVEL HARRYCEST BUT THERE ARE MENTIONS OF FUTURE TOMARRY.
I can't correctly mark the primary pairing because ffnet won't let me put Harry on as a character twice, LOL sorry.
Title is from the quote: "When you say goodbye to someone you love, maybe if you say something crazy, something true, maybe he won't stop loving you."
- Tom Spanbauer, 'I Loved You More' (via @queerlitbot on twitter 4-21-20)
There's one underage kiss (15 year old Harry snogs 21 year old Harry) but NO underage sex, don't worry.
The most relevant AO3 tags are: self-cest, time travel, Doctor Who references, hand-wavey magic and science shhhhh just go with it, eventual smut, IMPLIED FUTURE TOMARRY, implied future polyamory, kind of slow burn but not TRUE slow burn because there are time skips, happy/hopeful ending.
Enjoy :)
1
Harry met the man for the first time when he was seven years old, on the day he'd gotten in trouble at school for supposedly climbing onto the roof of the kitchens. It was late at night and the Dursleys were all sleeping, but Harry's thoughts and emotions wouldn't let him fall asleep—he was angry that no one believed him, and a little bit scared because he didn't understand how he'd just suddenly appeared on the roof while running from Dudley's stupid friends. He was a little bit excited too because it had been rather cool honestly, but also a little bit doubting himself because everyone else kept calling him crazy or a liar. Harry lay awake on his thin mattress inside the cramped cupboard that had always been his room, and he stared at the ceiling and wondered if he could make it happen again—if he tried really hard, could he just disappear to somewhere else? The Dursleys' roof? A totally different house where someone would actually want him?
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud POP that had him sitting up and staring at the cupboard door, wondering whether Dudley was sneaking down to harass him some more, or if Uncle Vernon had decided to follow through on his blustery threats to cane him after all. There was an odd tingly feeling that washed over him—something in the air, almost like electricity, the way it felt whenever a storm was coming—and then someone was opening his cupboard door.
Harry tensed automatically and gripped his threadbare blanket in his hands—there was nothing in the cupboard that he could defend himself with, and it would be pointless anyway because he would just get in trouble if he tried. So he tensed up and waited to see if it would be Dudley or Uncle Vernon—but it was neither.
It was a man—young, but still clearly a grown-up—and he had messy black hair just like Harry's, and bright green eyes just like Harry's, and he was holding something that looked like a twig off of a tree. Impossibly, a ball of light seemed to hover just at the tip of the twig, lighting up the cupboard with a soft glow.
The man looked sad but also kind—like he cared about Harry, like he knew him somehow.
"Hi, Harry," he said softly, giving him a sad and forced looking smile.
"Hello," Harry said automatically. Then he blurted out, "Are you my dad?"
The man seemed to choke on air for a second, and then he looked sad again. "No, I'm not. I'm sorry."
"Are you an uncle then?" Harry tried, trying not to show his disappointment—he'd hoped, for one impossible second, that the Dursleys had lied about his parents being dead and that his dad was here to save him. "Older brother?"
The man shook his head and then ran one hand through his hair, pushing his fringe out of the way to reveal a very familiar lightning bolt shaped scar. "This is going to sound crazy," the man said, "but I'm you, from the future."
Harry blinked at him a few times, and then decided that this day had already been weird and impossible enough that he should just go with it. "Are you here to rescue me then?"
The man's expression turned sad again, and he said, "I can't, I'm sorry. I can't actually change anything. I'm just here because I remember that you had a bad day today, and that it would've been nice to have someone to talk to."
Harry studied the man for a moment, thinking this over, then he asked, "So you're a time traveler then—like The Doctor?" Harry wasn't technically allowed to watch the telly, but sometimes he snuck out after the Dursleys went to sleep and he watched reruns of Doctor Who with the sound down low.
"Not exactly," the man answered, but he smiled. "But I reckon that's close enough." He paused for a moment, then hesitantly asked, "Er, can I come in?"
Harry scooted back into the corner of the cupboard, on the very edge of his mattress, leaving the area right by the door open for the man to sit. Harry was still small enough that there was room to keep a bit of distance between them. The man crouched down and sat cross-legged on the floor, then pulled the door closed behind him and reached up to pull the string to turn on the lightbulb with a familiarity that seemed automatic. Then he absently twitched the odd twig in his hand and the light on the tip of it went out.
For a moment they just looked at each other, Harry with his tattered oversized tee-shirt and taped glasses and bruises from when Dudley had sucker-punched him when they got home from school, and the man with his strange, oddly elegant clothes and his much nicer glasses and his hair that was still messy but made it look good somehow and his weird glowing twig.
"What is that?" Harry finally asked, nodding towards the twig.
The man blinked, then said a bit awkwardly, "Oh, er—this is my wand. I'm a, well—I suppose I should say 'we're'—no, that sounds weird," he paused and seemed to gather his thoughts, then smiled and said decisively, "You're a wizard, Harry."
Harry blinked. "I'm a what?"
The man laughed. "That's what I said too."
He gave Harry a blinding grin, then pointed the twig at Harry's toy soldiers and said, "Wingardium Leviosa." The toy soldiers rose up into the air, and then swirled around each other as the man directed them in an intricate dance using the twig—er, the wand—before finally drifting them back down to the floor.
Harry grinned too, and asked, "Can I try?"
The man's expression sobered a little, and he seemed to think it over. "It shouldn't hurt anything—the way my friend explained it, the magic that I used to come here creates a sort of temporary pocket outside of time where nothing sticks in the normal timeline—you won't even remember meeting me, unfortunately." Harry's heart sank at that, but the man continued, "So, I reckon it won't hurt to let you try a spell or two—the Ministry of Magic can be right bastards about underage magic, but they shouldn't be able to detect it when I'm here with you."
Harry wasn't sure what to think or how to feel about all of that—he wasn't going to remember this? They were outside of time? There was a Ministry of Magic? His older self had a real friend? He could try a spell?
The man flipped the wand around backwards and held it out to Harry.
Harry took it and felt a wave of warmth run through him—a tingly feeling of rightness—and as he waved the wand gently some golden sparks shot out of it.
The man smiled at him. "Good. Now, point it," he said, gesturing towards the toy soldiers, "and it's a swish and flick," he pointed his index finger and demonstrated, "and you say Wingardium Leviosa." He nudged all but one of the toy soldiers out of the way, and nodded for Harry to give it a try.
Harry concentrated, tried his best to mimic the wand motion, aimed, and carefully repeated, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The toy soldier twitched and fell over but didn't float, and Harry felt a wave of disappointment.
"No, it's all right," the man said, "that's good. Hardly anyone gets it on the first try. Do it again," he said, reaching out to stand the soldier back up.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry tried again, and this time the soldier did a full flip but still didn't fly. Harry sighed.
"You're doing too much swish and not enough flick," the man said, and he started to move closer but then paused and asked, "Is it all right if I sit by you, show you how to do it?"
"Erm, yeah," Harry said, feeling a little bit comforted by the fact that the man—his older self (it was starting to finally sink in, as unbelievable as it seemed)—knew that he should ask first so Harry wouldn't get nervous. In Harry's experience, people who physically got close to him only did it to hurt him—obviously his older self would know that, and would've lived it himself.
The man smiled and slowly moved closer, sitting down next to Harry so that their sides pressed together. He slowly reached out and wrapped his much larger hand around Harry's on the wand. "Like this," he said, then guided Harry through the proper swish and flick motion a few times. Then he let go and instructed, "Say it now."
Harry swished and flicked one more time and said, "Wingardium Leviosa," and this time the toy soldier floated up into the air in front of them. Harry smiled and moved the wand from side to side, steering the toy soldier through the air before carefully directing it back towards the floor and setting it down.
Harry grinned up at his older self—should he be calling him Harry too? That would get confusing—and his older self grinned back and put one arm around him in an open hug. Harry smiled a little wider and wondered if this was his first hug—he didn't remember anyone else ever hugging him before. His smile dimmed a little as he recalled that, according to his older self, he wouldn't remember this time either.
"Why, erm," he started, then hesitated because whenever he asked the Dursleys questions he got yelled at or swatted like a misbehaving dog.
His older self's expression went solemn and he said, "You can ask me whatever you want. I probably can't answer all of your questions, but I won't get angry with you for asking."
Harry forced a smile, feeling foolish, then asked, "Why am I not allowed to remember this?"
The man grimaced a bit, then said, "Well, to quote The Doctor, it's because of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. I can't actually change the past or it'll create a paradox, so you have to forget."
"What if I promise not to tell anyone?" Harry tried, giving his older self his best puppy-dog eyes.
"It's not up to me, love."
Harry blinked at the endearment—no one ever called him 'love'. No one told him they loved him or even liked him. He blushed slightly, then asked, "But if you're the one who came here with magic—?"
"There are rules to magic," his older self interrupted in a gentle tone. "Unfortunately there are rules to everything. What I'm doing now is so close to impossible that there isn't a way around the rules. I don't get to change anything in the real timeline, and you don't get to remember me outside of our pocket universe. That's how it has to be—but while I'm here, we can talk or do magic or whatever we want for the whole hour, and when I come back—"
"We only get an hour?" Harry interrupted, his heart sinking. How long had they been in here already? He didn't have a watch so he had no way to know.
His older self nodded, then stressed, "But I'll come back. I promise. And when I come back, you should be able to remember everything that happened tonight as long as we're both in the pocket universe or timeline or whatever."
Harry nodded and then stared down at his own knobby knees, contemplating. "When will you come back?" he finally asked.
"I can't do this too often, but I'll be here whenever you need me the most," the man said.
That wasn't much of an answer. Harry frowned and asked, "When will that be?"
The man gave him half a smile and said, "I can't tell you specifics about your future either. One of the rules."
"Even though I won't remember?"
"Yep. Sorry. Something to do with subconscious influence—I don't fully understand it myself." He glanced off to the left with a thoughtful expression, and after a moment he said, "Maybe it'll let me hint a bit…all right… the next time I can come back will be—after you get some interesting letters," he finished, then he winced and rubbed at his temples, looking like a sudden headache had hit him.
"Letters?" Harry echoed. "Nobody ever writes to me."
The man just smiled mysteriously and said, "Not yet."
Harry thought about that for a moment, and then he remembered that the man had mentioned having a friend who helped him with the time travel. That must mean Harry would have an actual friend someday—apparently a friend who would write to him. The thought gave him hope and made him feel warm, and he smiled. After a moment he asked, "So what am I supposed to call you while you're here?"
The man shrugged and said, "Just 'Harry' is fine."
"But I'm Harry too, it'll get confusing."
His older self quirked an eyebrow and said, "We're the only ones here—I think we can manage to tell each other apart." He smiled and added, "But if you insist, I'll be 'Harry' and we can call you 'Hawwy'," he teased, looking far too amused, "since you're the tiny adorable one."
Harry bristled at the babying and blushed at the same time—it was a weird combination, to be embarrassed and slightly offended and kind of flattered all at once. "I'm not adorable," he muttered. "I look like a freak." He was too skinny and his hair was a mess and his clothes were always too big because he only got Dudley's castoffs and his glasses were old and broken.
"Hey," his older self said, his tone stern but still fond. "You are not a freak—you're a kid who's been neglected and abused by the people who were supposed to take care of you. It's not your fault. All right?"
"All right," he finally said, daring a look up to meet the man's green eyes that were exactly like his. "But don't call me Hawwy," he muttered, "m'not a baby."
His older self laughed, and said, "All right, fine." Then he bit his lip, pulled out his wand, and said, "Tempus." A set of floating numbers appeared in the air, looking vaguely like a digital alarm clock. Harry grinned at the display of magic, but the man frowned. "We only have fifteen minutes left Do you want to try another spell, or..?"
Harry's smile faded and he felt a stab of loss—he wasn't ready for this to be over. Wasn't ready to lose the one person in his life who understood him and was nice to him and taught him magic. "I don't want you to go," he mumbled.
The man looked sad and said, "I know, love. I don't want to leave you here but I have to."
"And I'm not going to remember you?" Harry asked.
"Not until next time."
Harry swallowed, then gathered up his courage and asked, "Then can you just," he paused then pushed on, "hug me, and tell me a bedtime story?" It was the kind of thing he'd jealously watched Aunt Petunia do for Dudley, and the kind of thing he didn't remember ever experiencing for himself.
"Yeah," his older self said immediately. He held his arms open, and Harry hesitated for a second but then climbed into the man's lap, relaxing into the hug when his older self wrapped both arms around him. "All, right—how bout Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump?"
Harry giggled at the silly title, but he soon found himself enthralled with the magical story. He felt safer and happier than he ever remembered being, and he wondered if this was how real kids (ones who weren't unwanted freaks) felt all the time. He didn't mean to, but he drifted off to sleep while he was still in the comfortable embrace of his future self, the man's comforting voice washing over him like a lullaby.
The next morning, Harry woke up alone in the cupboard but with a smile on his face, feeling strangely happy and trying in vain to remember what must've been a very good dream.
2
The next time Harry saw his older self, it was the summer after First Year and there were bars on his windows and a mad House Elf had stolen all his letters to try to stop him from going back to Hogwarts. It took a minute for everything to click—once again, Harry had been woken up in the middle of the night, and once again he was briefly disoriented by seeing an adult version of himself sitting on the edge of his bed.
"Sorry I'm late, love," his older self said while Harry just stared, assimilating the memories that had suddenly reappeared in his mind of their first meeting. "I meant to be back after your Hogwarts letters started coming, but, you know," he shrugged, forced a smile, and said, "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey."
Harry had barely processed the man's words before launching himself at him in a hug, startling an 'oof' out of him. "Please tell me I get to go back to Hogwarts," Harry blurted out, while his older self returned the hug. "Uncle Vernon put bars on the windows, and I got a warning for underage magic but I didn't even do it—it was this mad elf Dobby, and he stole all my friends' letters too!" When he finally ran out of breath and looked up at his older self, the man looked sad for a moment before forcing a smile.
He seemed to struggle to speak and his face took on a pinched, pained expression like someone who had a migraine coming on, then he finally managed to say, "Hogwarts is home."
Harry blinked, then said, "Oh, sorry—I forgot you can't tell me stuff directly. Don't hurt yourself trying to." He thought for a moment, then said decisively, "I'm going to choose to believe that was a yes though."
His older self smiled but didn't say anything one way or the other. There were a few moments of comfortable, companionable silence, and then the older Harry said, "So, Hogwarts is brill, isn't it?"
Harry grinned and said, "It's the best place I've ever been. And I have actual friends now—Ron and Hermione, oh, and that's Hedwig," he said, excitedly pointed to the snowy owl sleeping in her cage in the corner.
Older Harry smiled indulgently, and said, "I know. I'm happy for you—you deserve them all."
Harry glanced down at the floor, feeling a little awkward—he'd been so excited to share that he forgot for a moment that his older self obviously knew all of that because he'd lived it already. "Thanks," he said quietly, and even though it hurt he added, "You've probably got better things to be doing than visiting me, I mean, you don't have to—"
"Hey," his older self interrupted, firmly but fondly, "I am right where I want to be. All right?"
Harry swallowed, then said, "All right."
"Glad we're in agreement," his older self said before smiling and reaching one finger up to boop him on the nose while affectionately adding, "Hawwy."
Harry scrunched up his nose and batted the hand away. "I said not to call me that," he grumbled, even though he was holding back a smile. His older self gave him an exaggerated pout, and Harry informed him, "You are way too old to pout like that."
Older Harry scoffed and demanded, "Excuse me? I am not old! I'm twenty-one."
Harry nodded and deadpanned, "That's ancient."
"Brat," his older self said, but his tone was affectionate and he was smiling.
Harry smirked. "I know you are, but what am I?"
Older Harry raised an eyebrow at him, and then said, "Somebody who I know for a fact is ticklish," he reached down and attacked Harry's sides with his fingers, "right there!"
Harry dissolved into helpless laughter, halfheartedly trying to get away while simultaneously enjoying the attention and affection. "Okay, okay—stop! You win, you're not old," he finally surrendered.
His older self stopped the tickle-attack and let Harry squirm away to catch his breath. "Damn right I'm not," older Harry agreed. For a quiet few moments they just studied each other in silence, then older Harry asked, "So, is there anything you want to talk about?"
Harry bit his lip nervously, but after a slight hesitation the words started pouring out—he told him about Hagrid coming to deliver his letter, and about meeting Ron and Hermione, and about Draco Malfoy being a complete git, and about how he'd gone through a magical obstacle course and how Voldemort had been possessing one of his professors all year and how Harry was pretty sure he'd killed said professor with his bare hands.
His older self interrupted to tell him that it wasn't his fault and that he shouldn't feel guilty for doing what he had to do to survive. Harry might've cried a little bit at one point but neither of them would ever tell, and at the end of it he found himself in his older self's arms again, listening to another magical fairy tale as he reluctantly drifted off to sleep.
3
The summer after second year found him with another late night visit—this time in his hotel room at the Leaky Cauldron after blowing up Aunt Marge and running away—and another unloading of the year's events and his feelings about them to his older self.
And on top of the usual yearly recap, there was something else that had been bothering him—something that Harry had been afraid to mention to Ron and Hermione, and looking back and knowing now who Tom Riddle turned out to be, he was glad he'd never mentioned it, but—
"I sort of, erm," Harry said, before taking a breath and saying in a rush, "kind of had a crush on Tom Riddle."
Older Harry just smiled and said, "I know."
"Before I knew he was Voldemort, obviously," Harry added, blushing.
"It's all right, love," his older self said. "I know the Dursleys are stuck in the 1950s and the Wizarding World isn't the most open about those sorts of things, but it's perfectly fine to like boys as well as girls."
"Really?"
"Promise."
Harry relaxed a little bit, leaning against Older Harry's side. "Are you, erm, you know, dating anyone? Or married, or anything?" He wanted the answer to be 'no', although he couldn't have explained why if anyone asked him.
Older Harry gave him a thin smile and said, "I can't answer that. Future stuff."
Harry frowned, then asked, "You really don't think it's gross that I had a crush on Voldemort?"
Older Harry gently elbowed him and pointed out, "I had a crush on him too—it'd be a bit hypocritical, wouldn't it? And the diary version of Tom you met wasn't really Voldemort yet."
"I suppose," Harry said, then he abruptly changed the subject. "So, in other news, I overheard that Sirius Black betrayed my parents to Voldemort and now he's escaped from Azkaban to try to kill me. Never a dull moment, right?"
His older self remained suspiciously quiet, so Harry asked, "Harry?" and when he still got no response he glanced over to find his older self seemingly locked in a silent battle to try to speak—his jaw was clenched shut and his forehead creased in pain, and as Harry watched, a thin stream of blood dripped from his nose.
"Stop it!" Harry said, reaching up with both hands and turning his older self's face towards him to force eye contact. "Stop trying to tell me future stuff, you're bleeding!" He instinctively reached up and used his sleeve to wipe the blood off his older self's face.
Older Harry gave him a regretful look, then sighed and apparently gave up. "Sorry," he said after a moment, when he was finally able to speak again. "I just wish—nevermind." He sighed again, wiped his bloody nose with the back of his hand, then said, "I think that's going to cut our time short tonight—that punishment really zapped my magic… the connection that keeps me here relies on my magic, and it's rough on me under the best of conditions."
"Is that why you only come once a year?"
Older Harry nodded, then said, "It's not a year for me though—it's about a month on my end. Coming back puts me out of commission for about a week each time, and the ritual we have to do to get me here is, well, finicky. We—well, I say 'we'—my scarily brilliant friend figured out that there's a pattern to how I can come back—certain days of the month, certain moon phases. It's like, if you and I are on different trains heading different directions but on parallel tracks, there are only certain points where we'll pass each other and be close enough to interact. The ritual that brings me back pauses the trains, so we can get off and be together somewhere outside of the trains for a little while. And once we get back on, our trains pass and go about their routes and then start over—and then there'll be another spot where we'll pass on the next go round. Make sense?"
Harry nodded, but didn't say anything.
"Good," his older self said, looking relieved. "Because I can't explain it any better than that. He had to try three different analogies before I finally got it."
"He?" Harry asked. "You said 'scary brilliant' and I assumed you meant Hermione."
"Not this time."
"Who is he, then?"
Older Harry, glanced at him somewhat guiltily, then said, "I can't say." He gave him a nervous glance, then asked, "Would you mind terribly if I skip next year? Then I might have enough energy to be able to stay a bit longer than usual the summer after Fourth Year, and—" his mouth snapped shut as if commanded to by some invisible force. Then he sighed again and turned worried eyes on Harry.
"Sure, fine, whatever," Harry muttered, feeling angry and betrayed and devastated all at once.
Older Harry blinked. "It's not that I don't want to see you, love, I just—"
"Don't call me 'love' when you're just going to leave!" he snapped, losing his temper.
"I'll come back after Fourth Year," Older Harry insisted. "I swear, I will always come back for you."
Harry really desperately wanted to believe that. "All right," he finally said, because it wasn't like he had much of a choice about what his future self did.
Older Harry gave him a relieved smile, then leaned in to press a quick kiss to his forehead, right on top of his scar. "All right," he echoed.
Harry fought back a blush, and when his older self leaned back he pointed out, "You're bleeding again."
Older Harry frowned and swiped at his nose with his own sleeve, then said, "Fuck. I need to go—I'm sorry I cut us short this time. Just, stay strong, all right?"
Harry nodded, feeling rather unnerved all of a sudden, like future Harry was trying to warn him about something in the only (extremely vague) way that he could.
"I'll be back after Fourth Year," he repeated pointedly.
Then, disturbingly, he started to fade right in front of Harry's eyes.
Harry reached out, but his hand swiped through air—he blinked a few times, disoriented, before he realized that he was alone in his room at the Leaky Cauldron. What was he reaching for? Why was there fresh blood on his sleeve? Why didn't he remember how it got there?
He frowned, but simply laid back down in bed without even bothering to change shirts. He felt inexplicably dejected and angry, but he supposed that was normal after finding out that an escaped mass murderer was after him.
4
The third Triwizard Task. The portkey. The graveyard. Kill the spare. Cedric, dead. Voldemort, returned. Harry doubted that a single coherent sentence made it out of his mouth the night older Harry showed up in his bedroom at the Dursleys, only a few days after the end of Fourth Year.
Older Harry held him and let him cry for the entire time he was there, murmuring comforting but ultimately meaningless words, and repeating a mantra of "It wasn't your fault," which Harry couldn't bring himself to believe.
5
"You bastard!" Harry shouted, hurling the nearest object he could grab at his older self—it turned out to be a pillow, which older Harry easily swatted out of the air before it hit him.
"Harry—"
"You knew!" He grabbed another object off his nightstand—a jar of ink—and hurled it at his counterpart, who dodged and let it shatter against the wall. "You're worse than Dumbledore! You knew Sirius was going to die, and you didn't even try to tell me!" He snatched both his shoes from the floor and threw them at the same time—one of them clipped his older self's shoulder, and the other hit the wall and left a scuff mark. "You knew Voldemort was coming back the year before! You knew about the fucking prophecy!"
"Harry—"
"Go away! Just fucking leave, like you always do—" He reached for something else to throw, taking his eyes off his older self, which turned out to be a mistake.
"Listen!" Older Harry demanded, darting forward and grabbing Harry's wrists before he could throw anything else.
Harry tried to jerk free but his older self was taller and stronger, and easily kept his grip on him. "I don't want to listen to you, you liar!"
"I have never, ever lied to you," older Harry said in a lowered but intense tone of voice. "There are a lot of things that I literally can't tell you—you saw what happened the one time I really tried—but I have never lied."
Harry scoffed, and said, "Do 'it's going to be all right' and 'all you have to do is stay strong' not count as lies?"
Older Harry blinked, then said in a much smaller, more uncertain voice, "I'm sorry."
"Let go of me," Harry demanded.
Older Harry hesitated a moment but complied. Harry immediately shoved him with both hands, as hard as he could, and then stormed towards the door—only to find himself frozen in place as he reached for the doorknob.
"Erm," his older self said, sounding a bit sheepish, "guess I never mentioned it, but we have to stay together and stay in the same room while we're in the pocket universe—otherwise very bad, universe-imploding things might happen."
Harry scoffed—his face, at least, wasn't frozen, and he could still speak despite the rest of him being immobilized. "Sure. That's convenient."
"It's really not," older Harry countered. "I would love to be able to take you somewhere fun. Go flying, maybe. But apparently it's vital that we stay close, and once we're in an enclosed room together, that room has to stay closed off." He shrugged, "I don't really understand it, but I trust my friend on this one."
"Okay fine, I'll stay," Harry snapped, angry and irrationally jealous at yet another mention of the oh-so-brilliant and mysterious 'friend'. "Unfreeze me."
Nothing happened, and after a moment Older Harry stepped around from behind him, putting himself in view and also putting himself deliberately between Harry and the door. Only then did he wave his hand and wandlessly release Harry from the spell.
Harry shoved forward again, backing his older self into the door and grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. "Don't ever do that again," Harry demanded. "I don't need one more person trying to control me—you aren't supposed to be like that. You're supposed to be—" he trailed off, not quite sure how to finish the sentence. Older Harry stared back at him with identically green eyes, and after a moment Harry finally decided on, "mine."
Older Harry blinked, seeming surprised by that. "Harry—" he started, his tone cautious.
Harry threw caution completely out the window, and he gave in to a sudden impulsive possessiveness as he leaned in and pressed his lips to older Harry's, silencing him with an inexpert but eager kiss. He heard a sharp intake of breath from his future self, and felt him tense up.
Harry expected to be shoved away any second, so he poured everything he could into the kiss—the possessiveness that had flared up so unexpectedly, the anger and grief that dominated his heart of late, the gratitude and affection he felt every time his counterpart visited him, the desperation for him to stay with Harry instead of always going back to the mysterious 'friend' he always spoke of with such reverence and affection. Harry put everything into the kiss—and after a heartstoppingly awkward moment of unresponsiveness, older Harry finally started to kiss him back.
A hand wound its way into Harry's hair, and another landed on his hip and then sharply tugged him forward against his older self. Harry moaned against his counterpart's lips and rolled his hips forward, feeling even through their trousers an answering hardness that told him his older self was enjoying this just as much. The hand in his hair tilted his head to a better angle, and then there was an eager tongue running across his lower lip, asking for entrance. Harry opened for it, and moaned again as his older self's tongue sought out his own. They both lost themselves in the kiss for a long moment, and then Harry rolled his hips forward again before boldly reaching down and trying to undo the button on older Harry's trousers.
His older self hissed and broke the kiss, reaching down to still Harry's hands.
"Wait," he said, sounding rather breathless from the kiss.
"Too fast?" Harry asked, disappointed.
"Too—?" Older Harry asked in a disbelieving tone, before scoffing and saying, "You're fifteen!"
"So?" Harry demanded. Even though he wouldn't be an adult for two more years, the age of consent in the Wizarding World was fifteen, which his older self had to know. "I'm you. And you're still twenty-one, right? Six years' difference isn't so bad—"
Older Harry let out a disbelieving laugh and said, "Six years is nothing—it's not the bloody age gap that bothers me." He paused, ran an agitated hand through his messy hair, then said, "Look, you're grieving and you've just been through another trauma, and I'm not going to take advantage—"
"Oh, fuck that!" Harry interrupted, his temper flaring. "And I wasn't even thinking about Sirius or any of the rest of it while I was kissing you—it was brilliant, but thanks so much for reminding me," he said bitterly, walking away and sitting down on the edge of the bed in a strop, hiding his face in his hands.
After a rather fraught moment of silence, he felt the bed dip next to him, and he looked up to meet his older self's rather apprehensive and guilty look.
"You're with someone else, aren't you?" Harry asked.
Older Harry bit his lip, looked away, and said, "I can't tell you specific future stuff, you know that."
"Fuck the future," Harry grumbled.
A short, surprised laugh escaped from his future self before he quickly schooled his expression.
"What?" Harry demanded.
"Nothing, just," Older Harry was trying rather unsuccessfully to repress a smile, "you were trying to 'fuck the future' just now, weren't you?"
Harry snorted, then sardonically said, "Yeah, 'trying' being the key word." They both went quiet for a moment, and it was a slightly less uncomfortable silence this time. Finally, Harry sighed and said, "Look, if you don't want me like that, just say so and I'll never mention it again—just, please don't stop coming back because of this," he said, finishing in an embarrassingly small and insecure voice.
"Harry," his older self said, reaching out and clasping one of his hands as if by instinct. "I won't abandon you, love. I promise." Harry bit his lip and tried not to blush—it hit different, hearing older Harry call him 'love' now that they'd snogged. "And," he added tentatively, running a nervous hand through his hair again before admitting, "Merlin help me but, it's not that I don't want to, it just wouldn't be right."
"Because of your 'friend'?" Harry asked, putting a heavy, pointed emphasis on the word 'friend'. "That's who you're with, right? You get this look whenever you talk about him and how brilliant he is to be able to send you back here," he said, not bothering to keep the jealousy out of his tone.
Older Harry bit his lip and then tried several times to speak, wincing against the headache as he tried to circumvent whatever spell or rules-of-the-universe kept him from revealing specifics about his own future. Finally he managed a vague but pointed, "My 'friend' is very possessive."
Harry scoffed, and tossed out a snarky, "I'm you. If he finds out, tell him it isn't cheating if it's masturbation. It's a perfect setup, if you think about it," he said in a tone that sounded far more glib than he actually felt about all of this.
Older Harry stifled a laugh. His hand was still entwined with Harry's and he gave it a gentle squeeze, then he gave Harry a soft smile and said, "Jokes aside, I hope you know I think a lot more of you than that." His expression sobered into something more serious and entreating. "I didn't come back here to—to use you, or anything like that, and I certainly didn't expect you to, well," he trailed off and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.
"To end up having a massive crush on you?" Harry finished the sentence for him. Then he let out a short laugh and asked, "How could I not? You're kind and funny and you understand me more than anyone else ever could, for obvious reasons." He smiled and added a cheeky, "And you're not half bad to look at, either."
Older Harry chuckled and said fondly, "Brat."
Harry held back a grin and once again replied, "I know you are, but what am I?"
Older Harry glanced over and studied him, seeming to deliberate for a long moment. Finally he leaned closer—close enough that Harry's breath hitched in anticipation—and answered, "Someone who really, really likes to be kissed right—" he leaned in even closer, and his lips brushed the skin of Harry's neck just underneath his ear, "there," he said, pressing his mouth to Harry's skin and lavishing that particular spot with his tongue and with gentle nips of his teeth until Harry was positively squirming in delight.
Harry whimpered when his older self finally pulled away, and managed a breathy, plaintive, "Harry—?"
Older Harry gave him a small, forced-looking smile and said, "Sorry love, we're out of time."
Harry opened his mouth to protest—and found himself alone in his room, inexplicably upset while at the same time more aroused than he'd been in months.
He blinked a few times, disoriented and oddly disappointed—but why should he be disappointed? He huffed out a frustrated sigh, then laid back on his bed and shoved his pants down to tend to his very insistent erection.
6
Dumbledore dead. Snape a traitor—Snape, the Half-Blood Prince whose book Harry had grown so fond of and trusted so blindly.
Moody was dead, Hedwig was dead. Scrimgeour had aggressively crashed Harry's birthday party at the Burrow to finally deliver Dumbledore's bequests. Everything was a mess, and the one silver lining was that he would never have to see the Dursleys again. Well, that and the fact that he was of age in the Wizarding World now, and could do magic whenever he wanted. He'd tried to enjoy his birthday, but ended up sneaking away to an empty room at the end of the day.
"Hey," his older self said almost shyly from across the room.
Harry blinked at him, his brain taking a moment to re-assimilate his memories from their past meetings—it was always disorienting at first.
Once everything finished clicking into place Harry glanced up, sighed, and asked, "How is it that everything just keeps getting worse?" He was sitting up in bed, where he'd been trying and failing to distract himself by reading a Muggle comic book he'd nicked from Dudley's room while the Dursleys had been packing.
Older Harry frowned, and that familiar look came over his face, the one that meant he was trying to find a way around the No Future Stuff rule to answer.
"No, stop," Harry said before his older self could speak. "Let's just not talk about all of the bad shit this time, all right? Can we just," he tossed the comic onto the nightstand and climbed out of bed, taking a few steps towards his older self, "I dunno, just enjoy ourselves this time? If you want to, obviously," he added, suddenly unsure. "I mean, you did kiss me back—"
Older Harry stepped closer and reached up to put one finger vertically over Harry's lips to shush him. "Yes," he said simply.
Harry blinked. Older Harry withdrew his finger and replaced it with his lips, and Harry's eyes slipped shut as he got over his surprise and enthusiastically kissed him back, running his hands through that messy hair that mirrored his own, and quietly thrilling when older Harry's hands landed on Harry's hips and tugged him closer.
After what felt like ages, they broke apart to catch their breath, and Harry asked, "Not going to argue this time?"
Older Harry gave him a positively wicked smile and said, "We only have an hour—do you really want to waste time arguing?"
Harry grinned and said, "Nope. Definitely not. Arguing is the worst." He leaned up to kiss him again—his future self was a few inches taller and Harry found that so fucking hot he could hardly stand it. It was so surreal—his older self was taller, and his chest was broader, and even through their clothes Harry could feel that his older self definitely had some lean muscle on him. He wondered if the muscle was from Quiddich, or maybe even Auror training—not that his older self would be able to answer if he asked.
When they broke apart again to breathe, older Harry leaned back and stared down at Harry with a half-dazed affectionate smile. "God, you're so—" he interrupted himself by kissing Harry again.
"I'm so what?" Harry asked, smiling.
Older Harry smiled back and answered, "Beautiful…I mean it," he added when Harry rolled his eyes. "You're—I dunno—softer." Harry scoffed at that, and older Harry quickly added, "In a good way!"
"I dunno," Harry echoed, smirking as he pressed his hips forward, "I'm feeling pretty hard right now, honestly."
Older Harry chuckled and reached out, gripping Harry's hips in his bigger, stronger hands and then tugging their bodies even closer together. Harry moaned and older Harry swallowed the sound as he leaned down to kiss him again. Harry reached up and buried both hands in his older self's wild hair—just like mine, Harry thought, somehow finding that both comforting and hot.
Older Harry pulled away from the kiss just far enough to catch his eyes and ask, "Bed?"
Harry nodded eagerly and kissed him again as he walked backwards, tugging his older self towards the bed. When he got there, his confidence faltered and he hesitated.
His counterpart picked up on it—of course he did—and used one finger to gently tip Harry's chin up so he could make eye contact. "Hey," older Harry said softly. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to, all right?"
"I want to," Harry interrupted.
Older Harry smiled but pointedly added, "If you change your mind at any time, just say so and we'll stop. I won't be angry with you, and I won't stop coming back."
Harry nodded, feeling relieved—he hadn't even realized that he'd held a tiny fear of exactly that in the back of his mind, but his older self had effortlessly pinpointed it and snuffed it out. "All right," Harry agreed.
Older Harry leaned in to kiss him again, and he gently pressed Harry's shoulders until he laid back onto the bed. His older self followed him down, crawling on top of him and resuming their kiss.
After a moment, older Harry pulled back and asked, "How far do you want this to go?"
Harry swallowed, then looked up into the bright green eyes that mirrored his own. "All the way," he answered. "I want you inside of me."
Older Harry moaned and leaned back down to muffle it against Harry's lips. Harry wrapped his legs around his older self's waist, then arched up to press their groins together. Older Harry immediately thrust down, pressing them closer, and broke the kiss to mutter, "Fuck. Clothes off, now."
Harry grinned, then gently pushed his older self's chest until he sat up, giving Harry room to sit up and pull his own shirt off. He tossed it to the floor, then reached out to start unbuttoning his older self's shirt. As he did, older Harry reached for the button on Harry's jeans, popping it open and then slowly, almost teasingly lowering the zip.
"Lift up," older Harry said, tugging the jeans off when Harry complied. Harry pushed older Harry's unbuttoned shirt off of his shoulders, then reached for the button on his trousers. Harry tugged the trousers down to his older self's thighs, which was as far as they could go with the way he was kneeling over Harry. Older Harry laughed, then said, "Hang on," and laid down on his back beside Harry and awkwardly tugged them the rest of the way off before throwing them over the side of the bed. "Awkward, sorry," he said. "Usually he just vanishes our clothes, but I still haven't quite gotten the hang of that." Then he abruptly froze as he realized what he'd said. "Erm—sorry, I shouldn't have—"
Harry blinked, shoving down the stab of jealousy and hurt, and interrupted, "No, it's fine, I already assumed you and your 'friend' were—"
"I still shouldn't have brought him up in the middle of—"
"It's fine," Harry said again, sitting up and crossing his arms across his bare chest. Then he bit his lip and guiltily said, "Look, maybe we shouldn't do this—if it's going to mess things up with you and him—"
"I have permission," older Harry interrupted, sitting up as well.
Harry blinked. "Permission?" he echoed.
Older Harry nodded, looking down at his lap and sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. "I told him about what happened last time—he thought it was hot," he said, with a nervous laugh.
Harry laughed too, then conceded, "I guess he doesn't sound so bad, then."
Older Harry looked up to meet his eyes again, and said in a rather love-struck tone, "Harry, he's—everything we never knew we needed. He's not somebody you would ever guess that you'd be with, and it's not easy at first, but he's perfect for you. For us."
Harry blinked a few times, struck by the sincerity in his older self's tone. Then he asked, "Can you give me a hint about who he is? Just a little one, I don't want you to start bleeding again and have to leave early," he added.
Older Harry bit his lip, then carefully said, "Like I said, you'd never expect to end up with him."
"That could be anybody," Harry protested.
"You've already met him a few times," he said, failing to repress a wince.
Harry raised his eyebrows but remained silent, waiting for another, hopefully better clue.
"You didn't get along at first, and that's putting it very mildly," he added, rubbing his temple.
Harry frowned, "It's not Malfoy, is it?"
Older Harry laughed and asked, "Do you really think Malfoy could figure out how to rewrite the rules of time travel without breaking the universe?"
Harry sighed, half in relief and half in frustration, then he said, "Well I'm stumped then, unless you can give me something more specific."
"Sorry, love," older Harry said. "I've already pushed it further than I should've—anything more is going to set off another nosebleed."
"Sorry," Harry echoed, leaning forward to kiss his older self. "Don't hurt yourself." Harry pulled back to meet his own eyes for a moment, then he asked softly, "Whoever he is though, he's really okay with this?"
Older Harry nodded, then smiled a bit apologetically and confessed, "He does want to watch my Pensieve memory afterwards—I told him that would be up to you. I was going to ask you afterwards."
Harry blinked, feeling himself blush. "I—I suppose, I mean, I guess it's only fair," he rambled, feeling both self-conscious and turned-on by the thought of his future self's mystery boyfriend watching a memory of the two Harrys having sex. If they ever even got around to the sex, that is.
Older Harry beamed at him and leaned in for another kiss, gently nudging Harry until he laid back down. Harry obligingly spread his legs as his older self climbed back over him. He reached up, threading his fingers through his older self's messy hair as they kissed again. Older Harry kept one forearm pressed to the bed next to Harry's head for balance, and his other hand reached down to tease at the waistband of Harry's underwear.
Older Harry leaned back just far enough to make eye contact, then asked once more, "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes," Harry said, emphasizing it by reaching for his older self's underwear and carefully but decisively tugging it down, licking his lips when the enormous erection sprang free. "Damn," Harry said, because that was just not fair—it was at least two inches longer than his own, and slightly bigger around too.
Older Harry chuckled and kissed him again, tugging Harry's underwear off in turn. "You're still growing, love," he said, his tone a mix of amusement and reassurance, "and this," he said emphatically, wrapping his hand around Harry's erection, "is nothing to scoff at."
Harry blushed and bit his lip—his older self knew exactly how to stroke him (of course he did), and just as Harry was about to ask for more, his older self pulled his hand away, leaned down, and swallowed Harry's cock in one smooth motion.
Harry sucked in a gasp and grasped a fistful of the sheets, and it was probably only the shock that kept him from coming right then—gods, his older self was deep-throating him. Harry glanced down just in time for his own green eyes to flick up to meet his gaze—his older self couldn't exactly smile around a mouthful of cock, but his eyes crinkled in amusement, and then he moaned around Harry's cock, and the vibrations just about sent him over the edge. "Fuck," he gasped out, "if you don't slow down a bit, I'm gonna—"
His older self smoothly pulled off of him, teasing the head of his cock with his tongue as he went. "Mmm, wouldn't want that. Not this early, anyway," he said, giving Harry a hungry, appraising look before pushing Harry's legs up further, and spreading them further apart. "Hand me a pillow," he said, and Harry reached over his head, scrabbling to comply. "Lift up," older Harry said, sliding the pillow under Harry's lower back to prop his arse up for easier access. "Beautiful," he said, leaning forward to press a kiss to Harry's inner thigh. Then he leaned down again, his big hands cupping Harry's arsecheeks and gently spreading them apart.
"What are you—? Oh, fuck," Harry moaned, because there was a tongue—a very hot, wet, and insistent tongue—prodding against his hole.
Older Harry pulled back just long enough to ask, "This all right?"
"Hell yes," Harry breathed, sucking in another gasp when the tongue returned to its licking and prodding. Harry bit his lip and tried to hold in a moan when the tongue finally pressed inside, stretching his rim and delving into him. "Fuck, Harry," he moaned—and as much as he'd thought it would be weird to moan his own name during sex, it was definitely a good kind of weird. It was perfect.
Older Harry pulled back again, and Harry bit his lip and gave him a pleading look.
"Ready for more?" he asked.
"Ready for your cock," Harry answered boldly.
Older Harry licked his lips and sat up, holding out one hand and silently summoning his wand from the pile of his clothes on the floor. Harry raised an impressed eyebrow, but his older self didn't seem to notice. Instead, he waved it at his own mouth, casting a quick cleaning and breath-freshening charm, then he lowered his wand to point between Harry's legs. "Do you want me to stretch and lube you with a spell, or with my fingers?"
"Whichever's faster," Harry said, propping himself up on his elbows so he could watch either way.
Older Harry licked his lips, and decided, "The spell, then. It feels a bit weird at first," he warned, then he silently cast the spell and Harry felt an odd but not unpleasant stretching sensation, along with a rush of slick wetness inside of him that made him blush.
"Oh," he said, squirming a bit, feeling hot and wet and empty.
"Ready?" his counterpart asked, leaning over him to press a kiss to his lips, and wrapping his hand around Harry's cock again.
"Yes," Harry murmured against his lips. His own lips—fuck, why was that so sexy?
Older Harry smiled, then said, "Bear down against me a bit, it'll help."
He kissed Harry again, and when Harry's tongue tentatively pressed past older Harry's lips, older Harry pressed the blunt head of his cock against Harry's entrance and paused. Harry sucked in a gasp, breaking the kiss, then he remembered what he'd been told and bore down when his older self's cock nudged forward. For a moment, it felt like the stretch would be too much, it felt like it would never fit—but then he bore down again and it slipped inside a few inches before older Harry found the self-control to pause for Harry to adjust.
Harry's heart had sped up and he felt a bit unreal, but he told himself to calm down—it was just a cock inside of him for the first time, his older self's cock, no big deal (except it very much was a big deal, he was losing his bloody virginity here)—but it took a long and gentle kiss from his older self to put him at ease.
"We can stop if you want," older Harry said, and the reassuring words were so at odds with the man's lust-blown pupils and his heavy breathing and his throbbing cock that had at least three inches inside of Harry already that it took Harry a moment to process the meaning.
"What? No," he said, wrapping his legs around his older self's waist and trying to nudge him forward, "keep going."
Older Harry bit his lip and hissed, "Don't try to force it—just, relax." He leaned down to capture Harry's lips in a kiss, running his tongue along Harry's lower lip until Harry opened for him. He brushed his tongue lightly against Harry's, then ran the tip of his tongue along the roof of Harry's mouth, causing an intense and almost ticklish zing of pleasure.
While Harry was still processing that, his older self's cock nudged forward a little farther inside him. Harry hissed in a breath, but kissed his older self and breathed, "More."
Older Harry chuckled and said almost absently, "Gods, I really am a pushy bottom."
Harry quirked an eyebrow at him, realizing that this must be something the mystery boyfriend had teased him about before. Harry very much wanted his attention fully on him though, so he said, "Funny, because I'm pretty sure the cock in my arse means that you're the top."
Older Harry gave him a smile that was almost shy and said, "Only for you."
Harry blinked, and then hissed in pleasure when his older self pushed in another inch deeper—it had felt strange at first, but he was getting used to the fullness and really starting to enjoy it. "Fuck, is that all of it yet?" he demanded, kissing older Harry and secretly hoping the answer was no.
"Not yet," older Harry said, pulling back and looking slightly worried. "We don't have to—"
Harry kissed him again to shut him up, and then clenched his arse around his older self's cock.
Older Harry moaned into the kiss, then pulled back to hiss, "Fuck, Harry—"
Harry grinned and said, "Yes, that's the idea."
"Brat," his counterpart scoffed through a smile.
"You love it."
Older Harry blinked, then agreed, "Yeah," and kissed him again. He pulled out a few inches, and then slowly thrust back into Harry, drawing out an appreciative moan.
He pulled almost all the way out again, then caught Harry's eyes and said in a firm tone, "You tell me right away if I hurt you, or if you want to stop, all right?"
"All right, I promise," Harry said, leaning up to recapture his lips, "just, please—"
His older self interrupted him with a breath-stealing thrust, hitting a spot in Harry that lit up his entire body with pleasure. "Fuck! What was that?"
Older Harry smirked, looking pleased with himself. "That," he said, pulling out again before sliding back in and perfectly nailing that same spot, "was your prostate."
"Do that again," Harry demanded, wrapping his legs tighter around his older self and trying to pull him forward again. "Hell, do that forever."
Older Harry grinned and pulled most of the way out, but then he leaned down to kiss Harry briefly and asked, "Can you relax for me, love? I want to see if you can take it all—call me selfish, but it'll be better if I don't have to worry about holding back."
"Yeah," Harry gasped. "Yeah, come on," he said, taking a deep breath and trying to relax as much as he could.
Older Harry bit his lip again, then slowly pressed back into Harry, only this time, he didn't stop—he kept pushing deeper, filling him up until he was all the way inside and his hipbones were pressed flush against Harry.
"Fuck," they both breathed at the same time, before locking eyes and smiling.
"All right?" older Harry asked.
"Amazing," Harry said, loving the fullness and the stretch and the feeling of belonging to the older man. And maybe it was silly but he also felt proud of himself for being able to take all of his older self's impressive cock. "Gonna move anytime soon?"
His counterpart nipped at Harry's lower lip in response, then shifted his hips and pulled halfway out before pushing back in, still taking care to go slowly.
Harry swallowed as his older self bottomed out inside him again, then he whispered, "Harder."
"Patience," his older self whispered back. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Harry," he half-moaned half-whined, "I will tell you if you hurt me, all right? Just, come on."
Older Harry seemed to hesitate on the edge of uncertainty, but then Harry surged up to kiss him at the same time he clenched around his cock, and something in older Harry finally snapped.
He fervently kissed Harry back, slowly withdrawing his cock and then pushing back in harder than before. It forced a moan out of Harry, and his older self caught his eye in concern, but before he could ask, Harry said, "Good, it's good. Keep going."
Another slow slide out, another hard thrust all the way in, another filthy tongue-tingling kiss to punctuate it.
"Fuck," his older self breathed as he pulled out and thrust back in again, "you're so tight."
Harry caught his eyes, then said, "Yeah, you're my first."
Older Harry's answering kiss was almost feral as he claimed his lips again with a muffled moan. Harry loved it. "Mine," older Harry murmured against his lips.
"Yes," Harry breathed, kissing him again, claiming him right back.
The thrusts sped up, and older Harry seemed to deliberately hit his prostate only every other thrust. "I'm close," he murmured after a moment, pressing his forehead against Harry's, breathing the same air as he pounded into him. "D'you want me to—?"
"Don't you dare pull out," Harry said before he could even finish the question. He stole a brief, sloppy kiss, then added, "I want you to fill me up."
His older self moaned against Harry's lips, and his thrusts sped up as he started to lose the rhythm. He reached down to stroke Harry's cock, and moments later they were coming at the same time—older Harry slammed in as far as he could go and held there with a choked off moan as he twisted his wrist just right, and then Harry's release splashed across both their abdomens while older Harry's come shot deep inside of Harry.
Fuck, Harry could actually feel it, a hot foreign wetness inside of him, claiming him and filling him up. "Holy fuck," Harry breathed, panting against his older self's lips as they both tried to catch their breath.
"Yeah," older Harry agreed, seeming even more speechless than Harry.
His eyes flicked down to meet Harry's and the expression in them softened as he leaned in for a kiss. It was a slower, languidly affectionate kiss, less heated than before but not any less meaningful.
Older Harry broke the kiss and met Harry's eyes again. "I love you," he said, softly and almost casually, as if he hadn't just upended Harry's entire world. As if he wasn't the first person to ever say it to Harry and mean it in a romantic way.
Harry blinked up at those identically green eyes for a moment, then he finally found his voice and said, "Love you too." Of course he did—he had for years, even if he was forced to not remember it most of the time.
Older Harry grinned, and then rolled the two of them onto their sides facing each other, gently slipping out of Harry on the way. Harry winced and then blushed as he felt some of his older self's come leaking out of him. Older Harry lifted a hand to fondly brush Harry's hair back from his face. "So did I do all right for my first time topping?" he asked playfully.
Harry smiled. "I don't have any complaints. Did I do all right for my first time?"
Older Harry blinked at him, frowning slightly at the way he'd said it. "Your first time bottoming, you mean?"
Harry's brow furrowed, and he said, "My first time, period. Either way—you should know that. Why are you frowning at me?"
"Was Ginny in sixth year just a really vivid hallucination then?" his counterpart asked, seeming almost annoyed with him, as if he thought Harry was lying.
"I didn't have sex with Ginny! She kissed me but I told her I didn't like her that way."
Older Harry was blinking at him with a very odd expression on his face.
"What?" Harry demanded. "Did you have sex with her? Gross."
"You're missing the point," older Harry finally said, looking slightly pale. "The timeline changed, somehow. I'm not supposed to be able to change things, but—if I slept with Ginny, and you didn't," he bit his lip, then his expression changed, lighting up into something almost hopeful. "Why didn't you?" he asked suddenly.
Harry blinked, feeling awkward. "I don't know, it just didn't feel right. She's Ron's sister. The Weasleys are the closest thing to family I've got, so I guess she's just too much like a sister to me."
His older self tilted his head and gave him a knowing look, "Is that all? Or did it feel like you were supposed to be waiting for someone else?" he asked coyly.
Harry thought about it, "Erm, maybe? I mean, I didn't remember you, but maybe subconsciously or whatever—"
Older Harry grinned, and leaned forward to press a quick kiss to Harry's lips. "Subconsciously or whatever," he echoed, "the timeline changed, and the universe didn't explode. Which means," he said excitedly, then he trailed off with a cautious look at Harry.
"Which means?" Harry prompted.
His older self bit his lip, then said, "I don't want to get your hopes up too much, but—that change might be enough to have split your timeline into an alternate universe. And if it's truly separate from mine now, then there won't be any more risk of creating a paradox by trying to change things."
"Which means?" Harry repeated.
Older Harry grinned and said, "We can fix things here—we could come back outside of this pocket universe and actually change things for the better. We can take care of the Voldemort issue, and then if you wanted to, you could come home with me—I don't know if I could convince Tom to stay here, he's got our world exactly the way he likes it now, and—"
"Tom?" Harry interrupted, a chill going through him as he thought back to his older self's clues about his 'friend.' He'd only met two Toms, and only one of them was likely to be powerful enough to bend time.
Older Harry's eyes went wide and he went silent for a moment. "It let me say his name," he finally said, after a stunned moment where the two Harrys just looked at each other. "Usually whenever I try it automatically forces me to say 'my friend' or something instead." He grinned, then said excitedly, "That proves it—your timeline split after we kissed last time, and when we had sex it split far enough that we can—"
"Tom?" Harry interrupted again, in a more demanding tone this time. Older Harry paused, and his hopeful expression faded into worry. "As in Tom bloody Riddle? As in Voldemort, who's been trying to kill us for literally our entire life?"
"Harry," his counterpart said, reaching out for him.
Harry flinched back, putting some distance between them on the bed. "You're with Voldemort? Seriously? At least tell me it's one of the Horcruxes and not snake-face himself!"
Older Harry gave Harry a kicked-puppy look when he flinched away, then he tried to explain, "It's complicated, but instead of destroying the Horcruxes, we found a way to return some of them to his main soul. He's not insane anymore, and he's not 'snake-face' anymore either. We saved him instead of killing him."
"Who's 'we'?" Harry demanded, still feeling rather betrayed.
"Me, Hermione, Severus, and the Locket Horcrux."
"Snape? How could you work with that coward after he killed Dumbledore?"
Older Harry gave him a sharp look and said, "Severus Snape is the bravest man I've ever known. He killed Dumbledore because Dumbledore made him promise to—it's a long story, but Sev was on my side all along. He helped us reunite the Horcruxes, and miraculously Tom forgave him for it once he had his sanity back."
Harry just blinked at his counterpart, trying to process all of this. "You didn't mention Ron," he said cautiously, hoping he wasn't about to get some really bad news.
"Oh, no, Ron's fine. He was just being a berk at the time, so he wasn't around for the second half of the Horcrux Hunt," older Harry explained, giving Harry an entreating look.
Harry bit his lip, then asked, "When you go back, am I going to remember this time?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe?"
"How much time do we have?"
Older Harry blinked, then closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate. "About ten minutes," he finally said.
Harry raised an eyebrow. "What, you can just sense it?"
His older self shrugged. "It's a spell, like a countdown timer in the back of my mind." He reluctantly slid to the edge of the bed and grabbed his clothes from the floor. "You should probably get dressed," he told Harry as he pulled his own clothes back on.
Harry retrieved his tee-shirt and pulled it over his head, then found his underwear and jeans. Once dressed, he sat back down on the bed and bit his lip uncertainly while he watched his older self finish buttoning his shirt. Older Harry sat back down on the bed across from Harry, but neither of them seemed to know what to say.
Harry looked down at the bedspread between them and stayed silent. After a moment, a hand tentatively slid into view, palm up between them. Harry glanced up, and his older self gave him a sad smile.
"I, erm, don't really want to leave with you mad at me. Hopefully it'll let you remember after I leave, and you'll have time to think everything over. I don't know exactly when I'll be back—if the timeline's changing, it's going to be harder to calculate which moments I can safely come back to."
Harry's heart rate kicked up, suddenly afraid at the thought of older Harry not being able to get back to him, and he reached out and took his hand. "I—I'm not exactly mad at you," he said hesitantly, "this is just—a lot to take in all at once."
Older Harry squeezed his hand and gave him a comforting smile. "It's all right, love. You don't have to decide anything right now."
Harry held back a scoff, because he actually did have to, didn't he? If there was a chance older Harry might not be able to come back, and if things had already changed so much that it split his timeline into an alternate universe from older Harry's… "How long do we have now?"
His older self blinked, then said, "About eight minutes—don't make me keep calling it out, it's going to give me anxiety."
Harry let out a nervous laugh, then said, "Right, well, eight minutes." He looked up and met his older counterpart's eyes, and said, "Convince me."
Older Harry blinked. "What?"
"Convince me to go with you."
His older self blinked again, looking nervous, then said, "Well, the war's over, for one thing. No more fighting, no more Chosen One bullshit." Harry nodded along, and his older self continued, "Erm, and well, Tom—he's amazing, honestly. He's brilliant, and powerful, and he's done so much for the Wizarding World ever since he started putting all of that power and brilliance towards less insane goals."
"And did he do that on his own?" Harry asked, interrupting. "Or did you have to blackmail him into it?"
Older Harry gave him a wry smile and said, "Well, 'blackmail' is a strong word, but I definitely did some firm nudging in the right direction. No more Death Eater attacks, no more blood-supremacy propaganda."
Harry bit his lip and nodded absently. "How long now?"
"Hm? Oh, er, six and a half minutes."
Harry felt a stab of sadness in his chest, and he said, "Keep talking."
"Erm, well, you'd never have guessed it but Severus was best friends with our mum up until that incident we saw in his Pensieve… Now that he doesn't have to pretend to hate me all the time, he tells me stories about her sometimes. He really loved her. He's still a git but he's mellowed out a lot and he's sort of like a father figure to me now," older Harry paused and finally noticed Harry's very dubious expression, and said, "never mind, that's not doing it for you."
"No, not really," Harry confirmed. "Time?"
"Five minutes. Erm, fine—Tom is amazing in bed. Like truly a sex god. I can't even describe it." Harry was smiling now, and older Harry smiled back, continuing, "And he really does care about me—took him forever to admit it, but we're connected, you know—I could feel it," he said, gesturing up to his scar. The scar they shared. "He didn't even recognize love for what it was at first—he didn't think he was even capable of it—but he loves me." Older Harry paused for a moment, then caught Harry's eye and said, "I know exactly how much you've always wanted someone to love you and protect you and belong to you like you belong to them—that's what I have with Tom. That's what we could both have, with Tom and each other." He gave Harry a look that managed to be simultaneously pleading and affectionate.
Harry swallowed and tried to ignore the flutter in his stomach. "Time?" he asked.
Older Harry bit his lip, starting to look worried. "A little under four minutes. Harry—"
"He really loves you? You're sure? He's not just, just manipulating you, or using you, or—"
"I'm sure," older Harry interrupted. "I'm—" he hesitated, then ran a nervous hand through his hair and confessed, "I'm a Horcrux, and so are you," he said, pointedly glancing up at Harry's scar.
Harry's jaw dropped and he felt himself go pale. He couldn't even put up a token denial, because as soon as he'd heard it, it made a horrible kind of sense—the visions, the scar pains, the Parseltongue, the shared emotions.
Older Harry paused for a moment to let it sink in, then he continued, "When he tried to kill us as a baby—look, I don't have time to tell you the whole story. I know he loves me because I can feel it through the Horcrux link—and even if it takes him a while to love you, he'll protect you and treat you like a bloody king because you're me, and because you're his."
"A king?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.
Older Harry shrugged and said, "Well, he's a king too in this metaphor, obviously. The one who actually runs everything."
"Oh, obviously," Harry said with a nervous laugh.
His counterpart smiled, but said, "Three minutes."
Harry felt another bolt of something like panic go through him at the thought of older Harry leaving again, after everything they'd shared, after finally being allowed to know about the future—he bit his lip, gathered up his Gryffindor courage, and said, "All right—take me with you."
His older self blinked. "What?"
Harry squeezed his hand, and repeated, "Take me with you."
"Are you sure? Because you have to be absolutely sure," older Harry said solemnly. "If you come with me, your timeline is going to be totally changed—you're just going to suddenly go missing as far as anyone knows until we manage to come back to fix things, and even then—"
Harry squeezed his older self's hand again, then shuffled closer on the bed and shut him up with a kiss. "I'm sure."
The smile older Harry gave him was nearly blinding, but then his expression shifted into determination instead. "Right, two minutes." He summoned his wand again, then turned Harry's hand over in his own so it was palm up. "This is going to hurt but try to hold still for me, love, all right?"
Harry nodded and braced himself—his older self used the tip of his wand to carefully cut a rune into Harry's palm, and then a matching one into his own. "What is that?" Harry asked, watching his older self carve open his own palm while Harry's dripped onto the bedspread.
"It's a binding spell. Blood magic—technically illegal," he said with a shrug, "but when we press the runes together, it'll make the spell that sent me back recognize you as part of me, and then it'll bring you to my timeline along with me."
"Do you do a lot of illegal blood magic since you shacked up with Voldemort?" Harry asked dryly.
"He teaches me things," older Harry said obliquely. "Doesn't mean I use all of them. Why? Have you changed your mind?"
Harry paused and thought about it, then shook his head. "No."
Older Harry put the finishing touches on his own rune, then looked up and asked one more time, "You're absolutely sure?"
"Yes," Harry said, leaning forward and kissing him again.
His older self kissed him back, and without pulling away from the kiss he clasped Harry's bleeding palm with his own, pressing the runes together as the timer ticked down to its final seconds.
"Get ready," older Harry said, breaking the kiss but leaning his forehead against Harry's, staying close, sharing the same air.
Harry felt magic gathering around them in a slow but insistent tugging sensation, and he asked, "Is that—? It's sort of, pulling at me—"
"It's a bit like Apparition," older Harry reassured him, "it just starts off a lot slower."
"I hate Apparition," Harry grumbled, but he leaned up and pressed another kiss to older Harry's lips.
His counterpart smiled into the kiss and said, "It'll be worth it." Then he clasped Harry's hand and whispered, "Hold on tight, love."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A/N: And they both lived happily ever after with Tom and each other :)
I miiiiiiight at some point make this one-shot into a two-shot and add a chapter with both Harrys and Tom in older Harry's timeline (emphasis on the "miiiiiight" because I have 3 WIP's right now lol).
Also, this was written as a gift for Zombu7, so certain details in the story (older Harry being a bottom with Tom and only topping for younger Harry... calling him "Hawwy") were specifically geared towards Zombu7's preferences.
Hope you enjoyed. Comments and con-crit are very welcome and very much appreciated! :)