Title: Whatever May Come

Author: Nil

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Harry begins his 6th year and finds amazing discoveries concerning his true heritage.

Disclaimer: If I own Harry Potter, I wouldn't be posting it on FanFiction sites. I would be making some money. I do however, own the plot completely, and if not it is only because I have never seen one of this type. I think this is the only story like this at least. I hope.

Feedback? If you would be so kind. ^^

Archive? I would be honored! But only if you ask me first. Otherwise I'll be a touch indignant.

"Prongs, it will work. Trust me. It will."

"Sure! Can't bloody deny that, but to what purpose? To make You-Know-Who go after you instead of me? Why? What would that help. Nothing! All it would do is just get you killed."

"Calm down. No! Really, it will help. You have something that will have to be done. That dream… It was a prophecy, it had to be." James sneered at him.

"And why? That last dream you had about you and Marie Williams sure didn't come out like it was foretold."

"Listen to me Potter. This was real, I swear it to you. You can't explain the difference, even if you have had one. It's… just kind of a knowledge. You know it is true, inescapably. Sometimes you think you are absolutely sure about something, but you are just ignoring your doubts then. This, to have seen it, you can't doubt. You have something you have to do James. And if you don't do this, now, you'll die."

"Yeah, well, this just means you will die, and what good will that do? And who can kill me anyway? You and I, we took on four Death Eaters this summer and won! Odds two to one and we beat 'em hands down!" Sirius cuffed him upside the head.

"One, it will keep you alive. Two, Voldemort. Three, I don't deny that wasn't some fancy top-notch wand work if I do say so myself, but we caught them off guard. We have to switch.

"I have the recipe for the potion and the reversal, and it is most likely the only recording of it in existence so if you don't agree I'll do it to you in your sleep and then will have to live with the guilt of tricking you. 'C'mon. I've had the prophecy, so it is a bit like a forewarning now, neither o us might have to die."

"So, you are asking me even though I don't really have a choice, huh?" Sirius fidgeted uncomfortably and looked slightly taken aback by how toneless James' words were.

"Well… that's not how I would probably choose to put it…but yes. Whether you like it or now I'm going to save your life."

"Incorrigible." Sirius gave a mock bow to his friend and smiled lightly.

"Why thank you! I do my best you know." He continued grinning at James while the other sighed.

"Fine. We'll do it. When do we start, Padfoot old friend?" he asked somewhat sullenly as Sirius laughed aloud and clapped him on the shoulder.

"It will be finished before curfew!" he grinned even more at the shocked look on James' face and explained. "I wanted to get it done before you could back out in case you changed your mind."

"So. Tonight is the last night I'll be myself." He mumbled to himself, digesting the new information.

"Actually, sometime during the summer before seventh year we'll switch. Tonight's potion is merely a binding draught to make sure you can't back out and until then we'll use the odd Poly-Juice Potion to get us used to being the other person until then."

"Why can't we just do the potion now?"

"Because I can't buy it premade, it takes a long time to make, and I can't get all of the ingredients yet. So, a good supply of Poly-Juice from Knockturn, and a couple of Pensieves."

"Pensieves? How in the- Padfoot, those are expensive! I mean really, really expensive. I was just thinking about how much you had to have spent on Poly-Juice, but two?" Sirius waved his hand dismissively as he brought out the two basins.

"Well, we needed two. Can't have our memories getting clumped together, can we? 'Cause we have to learn about each other's past a bit better ya know."

"We could have taken turns." He said simply. The Potters weren't poor by any stretch of the word, but a single pensive was rare enough on it's own.

"I'm impatient, and taking turns means waiting. So, I bought two. Don't worry about it! You are worth more than a few old candelabras from the attic. No one has probably seen them for a centaury, let alone will remember them to miss them. Here, you use them like this," he took one of the basins and placed the wand to his temple for a moment before drawing it away with a silvery… thing trailing out from his head and stuck to the end of the wand before placing it in the basin. James leaned over it, his nose nearly touching the… stuff as a wintry scene seemed to materialize for a moment before swirling away. He kept bent over waiting for it to re-appear as he asked Sirius about it.

"So, how do you make it come back? I only caught a glimpse of it and I couldn't hear anything either." He could see Sirius step up beside him from his peripheral vision just as he was contemplating poking it with his wand.

"Well, like this." Sirius pushed the back of his head down and his nose hit the stuff when he was suddenly gripped by a feeling similar to portkeying and found himself in the wintry scene that turned out to be at Hogwarts. And he was staring at his own back.

He could look around, which was sufficient to prove to him he was in control of his own body, so that meant also he wasn't seeing it from Sirius' eyes.

"Hey! Sirius!" he called out but neither the otherhim or the otherSirius answered, though a hand descended on his shoulder and he looked to see his friend grinning at him.

"It is just a memory, you can't effect them at all, so they can't have any knowledge of you."

"Yeah, but, this is your memory, so where are you?" Sirius pointed to a snow drift where a large dog crouched staring at the otherhim who was in turn staring at some girls walking on a path that's way had been cleared to the greenhouses. Too pops in quick succession sounded from where otherSirius was and there was no longer otherPadfoot but two boys, one of them being otherPeter.

OtherSirius grabbed a handful of snow and lobbed it at the back of otherJames' head, striking him with no little force. OtherSirius had switched back into otherPadfoot as soon as the snowball had left his hand while otherPeter stood there looking startled as otherJames turned around with a yelp and shot a hiccupping jinx at otherPeter. James turned to Sirius with a slight look of shock and ready to say something when the memory ended and he felt himself shot out with a hard jolt.

"Since this was only a single memory, you were shot out of it when all the memories were played through. To get out before then you have to either have the person whose memory it is pull you out from inside or someone break your contact with the memory matter in the basin. Your body doesn't go inside you know. If no one does either of those things, you just have to watch all the memories before you can leave."

"Wow. And I had thought Wormtail had been possessed at the time. How do you remove a memory? And do you still have it in your head?"

"Well, you have seen it, so you have knowledge of it, yet it is still in the Pensieve. It more makes a viewable copy of something than removes it from your mind. It also clarifies it, so it might not be the same as you remember it, since it shows what truly happened, even parts you may not have noticed, rather than your perspective of it. And to remove a memory, just do what I did while thinking of which memory you want. Try it." James stuck his wand to his temple and thought of getting his letter for Hogwarts.

Harry Potter looked in the bathroom mirror of his aunt and uncle's house thinking, not for the first time that summer, that he had changed a good deal.

So, what do ya think? Good, bad, what? Please! Tell me! If you are logged in when you review I promise I'll go review one of your stories. Also, tell me if you have ever seen a story like this, kay?

Ta,

Nihilum