The Hogwarts Express thrust between two mountains. It rolled through on a bridge, slightly above thick forests on either side. Smoke puffed out of its chimney and trailed in its slipstream. Harriet had not left her compartment, but she knew, somehow, that she was the only living soul currently on that train. She felt uneasy as she stared out of the window, the same scenery seemed to pass over and over. She felt like she had been on the train for hours now, but still had many thousand miles to travel before reaching her destination.
The door of her compartment slid open, pulling her attention away from the window. In the doorway stood a towering, cloaked figure, like a statue covered in a tarp. It was no dementor, the hand peeking out of its cloak, coal black and perfectly smooth, confirmed that, but still, Harriet felt a slow, creeping dread, a quick, mounting terror, as the figure stepped into the compartment, and loomed over her.
"Be not afraid." the figure said.
Harriet struggled to find her voice. She only gasped
"You are Harriet Potter." The figure said
Harriet nodded.
"A fifth-year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Soon to be fifteen years old."
Harriet nodded.
"You are brave, strong-willed, kind—"
"Lucky." Harriet mumbled, her voice finally returning
The figure made no reply. All was silent, but for the chugging of the train's engine. Harriet looked down at her hands, flexing and unflexing her fingers.
"Harriet, there is something I must ask of you."
Harriet looked back up at the towering figure.
"You must defeat Tom Riddle."
Harriet's gaze fell and she actually laughed; a short, sardonic exhale.
"I already know that."
"It will be difficult."
Harriet snorted.
"The odds are stacked against you. Tom Riddle is many times more powerful than you, Albus Dumbledore's days are numbered, and there are those in your midst who would betray you, the chances are very small that you will win."
"Oh, so no more pressure than OWLs..." Harriet muttered, her fingers flexing and unflexing.
"You may have a chance."
Harriet looked up at the cloaked figure.
"I am sure you understand the concept of alternate realities."
Harriet furrowed her brow at the figure, nodding.
"Various instances of yourself, spread out, all over space-time, some very similar, some exceedingly different…"
Harriet nodded, wondering where the figure was going with this.
"This concept is very real. Infinite realities exist simultaneous with your own, their scope and number ever expanding with every choice you make in your current one, and influenced by innumerable external factors. There are realities in which you lived a long and peaceful life, there are realities in which you have already died a violent death—but in this one, your current one, you must defeat Tom Marvolo Riddle."
Harriet looked down at her splayed fingers."What if I can't?"
"In this case you must. The Tom Riddle in your reality is a particularly desperate wizard. He is aware of the concept of alternate dimensions and is attempting, or will attempt, various iniquitous experiments which will threaten not only your reality, but countless others as well. He acts in desperation, but a desperate man is a dangerous one."
Harriet's hand clenched into fists.
"Well how should I stop him?You already said I'm bound to lose"
"That is not true. I only said the odds are stacked against you. You still have a chance, particularly with the help I aim to give you."
Harriet looked up at the figure, wondering what sort of help it could provide in such a seemingly helpless situation.
"Foreknowledge." It said, like reading her mind "I will give you foreknowledge—at least, in a sense. There are several alternate realities in line with yours; in which many key events line up, not precisely, but very closely. Closely enough that knowing of these events in other realities could help you prevent many tragedies in your own."
"Those other…instances—of me…they beat their versions of Voldemort?"
For once the creature seemed to falter. She saw no eyes but had the impression that it was avoiding her gaze.
"They did not—but that is no concern, they did not have the same advantages as you will have—"
"Well why not? Why didn't you help them-?" Harriet cried.
"The versions of Tom Riddle in their realities posed no danger to the order of existence. I understand that the news of your own death can be difficult to—"
"No! I don't care if I die!" Harriet burst out. The figure seemed to re-fix its gaze on her. "But those people—in all those other worlds—they—millions of them—i—it could be billions—"
"I could not help them. I am not all powerful. If at all I was, a gamble like I am taking would be unnecessary. Even the help I give here will not necessarily save you completely—it will require a large part of your own good judgement."
Harriet sunk low in her seat, air leaving her mouth like a deflated tire.
"My own good judgement—bloody hell…" Harriet looked out of the window for the first time since the figure had entered her compartment. The train chugged along, still passing the same scenery endlessly, rolling mountains and waving tree-tops. "Do you know what happens when I use 'my own good judgement'?"
"Your judgement is…flawed, yes,like any living being's—but it is better than you realize. This foreknowledge you receive can be a great boon."
Harriet put her chin to her palm. The outlines of the tree-tops waved up and down as the train sped through the country. The pattern repeated perpetually, like waves coming to shore and pulling back into the ocean.
"You're not omnipotent, but you know the future don't you? Don't you already know how all of this ends?"
"I do not know the future. I know the past. The lives which those other Potters lived. I know the events of your life up to this point as well, and they line up uncannily with events in the lives of your peers in other realities,so I presume they will continue to line up. I know Tom Riddle plans to upset the natural order because I know he has done extensive research into it, and Tom Riddle is not the sort to research something unless he means to put it into practice. If he means to go as far as I think he will, everything you hold dear will be in grave danger."
Silence reigned. The train rolled on its tracks, rattling intermittently. The mountains and tree-tops continued to pass.
"Our time here is nearly up." the figure said "I will give you the memories of your alternate selves. They will come slowly, so as not to be invasive. It will be your choice whether you make use of them or disregard them."
Harriet tried to think of something to say.
"I must go." The figure said. Its voice had shifted, like it had moved away from her. She heard the compartment door slide open.
"Wait-!" she snapped around—but the figure had already disappeared, leaving the compartment door half open.
Harriet left her seat and stepped half out of the compartment. She looked up and down the hall, but the train was empty, just as if no one had ever set foot on it but her. She closed the door of her compartment and settled back into her seat, dread mounting as she gazed out the window at the same undulating scenery. The train rattled over its tracks. The rattle was discontinuous, but rhythmic—the sound of the train's wheels passing over joints in the tracks. The rhythm was interrupted by the train suddenly hooting its horn. It was a hoot like Harriet had never heard before. Low and slow and moaning, like the train was in physical agony. The world turned red around her, like the sun was blotted out by a blood moon—
Then her eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright in her bed. Her nightgown clung to her body with cold sweat. At the same time, she had to throw her blanket off of her for fear of suffocating. She swung her legs off her bed and her feet met the cold floor with a physical shock. It took a while to find her bearings. She was on her bed, in her room, at 4 Privet Drive on a moonless night, and she was nauseous with dread. Her body shuddered and her fists clenched almost painfully.
Here she was, not yet fifteen, not yet halfway through with Hogwarts, not a witch of any competence besides, and somehow, she was expected to carry the fate of the world—of many worlds in fact—on her small shoulders, with tentative help from some alien creature which admitted it was taking a chance.
She got to her feet, legs wobbling, and crossed her room like it was a tundra in a snowstorm. She turned the knob slowly, not from weariness but caution; the Dursleys were not hard to wake, after the incident with Ron, the twins and their flying car in the summer after her first year. She closed the door slowly and leaned on it until it clicked. She moved across the hall, the only sound being her nightgown trailing along the floor, and made it to the stairs. She had to lean on the railing, but got down the stairs quietly, even skipping the creaky stair near the bottom. She had to rest at the felt ill. Was it a fever? Dread was never this physical.
Harriet passed the house phone on the wall before she got to the kitchen and stopped short. She remembered suddenly, that day, two years ago, when Ron had called the Dursley's home remembered his shouting, because he didn't know Muggle phone etiquette, Uncle Vernon's shouting, because he hated wizards…She reached out for the receiver but stopped halfway. She did not know Ron's number, or even if the Weasleys had a phone number—he might have been calling from a payphone on that was no point sending a letter. His replies were crap, when they came.
She entered the kitchen, which was nearly pitch black, only the vague shapes of the drawers and cupboards were visible. No matter—she knew this kitchen like the back of her hand by now. She'd cleaned it from top to bottom for years. She came up to the drawer she wanted and opened it fractionally.
With the tips of her fingers, she pulled out Aunt Petunia's favourite knife. Petunia valued this knife more than her only niece. One afternoon, when Harriet cut herself while chopping onions, Petunia hissed and spat; "Blood, on my best cutlery!" and herded her away, before the onions were dirtied.
Harriet held the knife up to eye level, considering it. Just then a dim light shone through the window, bringing the kitchen into relief and gleaming on the blade. She looked out the window in puzzlement. The kitchen faced away from the street; it couldn't be the streetlights. She looked out the window and saw it was not, in fact, a moonless night like she had thought. The clouds had rolled back, to reveal a full moon. She remembered another full moon, near the end of her third year, when she and Hermione had travelled through time, and ran up and down the Hogwarts grounds, trying to save Sirius and Buckbeak's lives. Time travel was one thing,she thought, but Harriet wondered what Hermione would think of alternate realities. She realized she would never know.
Suddenly the weight of what she wanted to do hit her in a shuddering gasp—but what did it matter? What chance of survival did she have anyway? Several versions of herself had failed to defeat Voldemort, and that was without the reality hopping agenda he apparently had in her world. That creature on the train said it would "help" her, but that help was probably dubious, that help relied on her "own good judgement". So far, her own good judgement had gotten one innocent boy killed. How many more would be next?
If she just removed herself from the equation, things would work out. The creature said Voldemort was desperate, but for what? To see her dead, obviously. Voldemort was arrogant. With his greatest enemy dead, his desperation would subside. He would rest on his laurels. The creature said Dumbledore's days were numbered, and yes, the man was old, but he could do quite a lot before his time was up. And a traitor in their midst? That had to be Snape, anyone could tell you that. Dumbledore made a show of trusting him fully, but surely he couldn't be so naïve?
Her mind was set. Harriet brought her left arm up, the sleeve of her nightgown dropping easily down to her elbow. The nightgown was a cast-off from Petunia, but so incredibly baggy that it was Harriet's private joke that they must at first have bought it for Dudley. Harriet brought the blade of the knife to her wrist. It gleamed in the dim moonlight, shining against her pale skin— the power of stainless steel. She pressed the blade to her skin, lightly at first, then dragged the knife savagely across her skin. She felt the stinging pain of her blood vessels exposed to air, as her blood splattered onto Petunia's gleaming tile floor. Her arm throbbed—the pain was incredible—but it wouldn't work with just one cut. She pressed the blade to her skin again.
