A/N : I've spent ages writing this so its way longer than usual, though it has pretty much no action in it, its all dialogue. Sorry if this annoys you but stuff will happen soon! Also there are many questions answered in this chapter. Next chapter should be interesting; we're back with Mr evil Potter!
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: Post OotP Harry receives a 'what if' stone for his birthday and gets thrown into an alternate reality where Sirius was the potter's secret keeper imagine a world with an alive Lily, James and Sirius, and a rather confused Harry. (As usual this will not be slash…I don't write it.)
What if
Chapter seven
The boy who cried wolf
"So let me get this straight. There is an evil version of me in my body, living my life, in his own evil way…" Harry said, running a hand through his unruly hair making it stick up even more.
"Yep, that's about it," Sirius said helpfully.
"No that's not it, Black," Snape stepped forwards. Behind his back Sirius pulled a silly face.
"Harry took potions everyday to…calm him down, make him less of a violent person. Oh and I saw that Black."
Harry thought about it for a moment, "so if he were to go without these potions. He would become-"
"-A maniac." Sirius piped up.
"You are not helping, Sirius." Dumbledore said seeing Harry's worried glance. "Harry we have managed to deal with him when he is at his worse, I'm sure your 'Order of the Phoenix' will cope with this sufficiently."
"I'm not so sure, with Voldemort on the rampage. The order is probably really busy."
"What concerns me more minister, is what if he joins this 'Voldemort'?" Snape said.
"He can't be that bad," Harry stated.
"I wouldn't anything past him," Dumbledore replied.
"Merlin, imagine being born like that, how did you and my parents cope with him all these years?" Harry directed his question to his Godfather.
"You didn't tell him, Sirius?" Dumbledore said.
"Well I was getting around to it! There was a lot to say…" Sirius trailed off looking uncomfortable.
"Right, I'll tell him then, Harry was never born evil," Severus told Harry. "He was an ordinary child, he was a bit spoilt but-"
"-Don't listen to him Harry, you were- I mean he was-, kind, smart and funny. Just like parents."
"So what went wrong?" Harry started to wonder if he really wanted to know the answer to this question.
"About three years ago, when he had just started third year, Harry somehow contracted Feverius."
"So why didn't he die? I thought no one survived if they caught it."
"Well no one has, apart from you." Snape looked slightly annoyed at being interrupted, but said nothing.
"What is it with me and surviving things? I survived the killing curse in my other life now a terminal illness in this one." Harry couldn't see why this should make him a horrible person in this world, though.
"Isn't that a good thing? I would love to be invincible, especially around the full moon." Sirius said, before Harry had a chance to ask what he meant, Snape started talking again.
"Anyway, Mr potter as I was saying, you contracted Feverius but no one knew of course. Because for some reason in the early stages you were able to fight it and felt nothing apart from a headache and a cold, I think he said." He paused looking unsure as to whether to continue, or not. He then started to speak again anyway.
"You see the main problem is how contagious Feverius is. It can be caught by being in the same room. I believe you must be within a few meters for it to have a chance of the other person catching it. So because Harry was at school at the time, he passed it on to nearly all his friends. Everyone he came into contact with in that day died the next day. It was too much for Harry, I think the fact that he lived just made the situation even worse. He felt he did not deserve to be alive when so many died because of him. No one really knows why he reacted the way he did, but different people react in different ways. Its his form of escapism." Sirius was looking rather nervously at Harry as though he expected him to blow up.
Harry did not know what to think, he felt sick at the thought of being responsible for all those deaths. 'He probably killed Ron and Hermione' he thought with a wave of nausea. But he controlled himself; he reminded himself that none of this was real in his world. Dumbledore was surveying him with interest, and with a nod Snape continued.
"We've tried lots of different types of treatment and nothing really worked, Lily and James have really been through a lot. It nearly broke Lily's heart putting him through lots of treatments, like experimental potions with lots of side effects. Eventually we perfected a potion which calmed him down a bit, but he had to take it everyday or he would get progressively worse."
"God, was he really that bad?" Harry spoke for the first time since being told what happened. Sirius flinched at his words.
"At first, he was violent and angry, he tried very hard to hurt everyone and himself. In the end through treatment he became a bit of an emotionless, cold hearted, person. Though occasionally he has good days, where he is almost near normal. The problem is they are rare and only happen if he has been taking his medication for a long time without any skipped days."
All this was horrible, he never thought there could be a reality worse than his, but this proved him wrong. "Can he ever return to normal, eventually?"
"Were not sure, but we are not giving up hope," Sirius said, he had a far away, tried look about him as he said this.
"These three years must have been a nightmare, how did you all cope?" Harry repeated his earlier question.
"Me and Remus help as much as we can, and of course living in the Order Headquarters means we are surrounded by helpful professionals most of the time, they help out loads. But Lily and James have probably suffered the most, there's a limit to how much Remus and me can do, due to that time of the month. It takes its toll on us grown ups more than it ever did on him."
Harry nodded, but he was unsure of what he meant. Then Sirius' words sunk in. "What do you mean, me and Remus, that time of the month?"
Sirius looked shocked and looked around at Severus and Albus.
Dumbledore who had said relatively little during the conversation spoke. "Harry you have Werewolves in your world do you not?"
"Yes," Harry said slowly "Remus is one in my world."
"Oh right he is here too. You see there was an incident five years ago and…well Remus bit you-I mean the other you and me."
"We're Werewolves," he said aloud to try and make it sink in. but the words sounded hollow and meaningless. His head was spinning with all this information. "How?"
"Oh, well Moony used to live here at the Order HQ and when he transformed he was locked in his room, which usually was fine because he took his Wolfbane potion. But somehow, we think it was one of 'the Shadows.' They managed to replace Remus' Wolfbane potion with something, which made him more aggressive. So when the full moon came he broke the door down, bit you first, then I came in your room to try and save you and he bit me. Lucky there was a Order meeting on downstairs otherwise he could have…" Sirius trailed off looking slightly pale. "Anyway, needless to say I forgave him, as awful as it was, it was in no way his fault. Though the other Harry forgave Remus, when he got to his third year he turned against him, well to be honest he turned against us all, but him in particular."
Harry felt the blood slowly drain from his face, through Sirius' description of that event, what worried him is how easily that could have happened when Remus was teaching at Hogwarts.
"So lets update again. This other Harry is evil and cold hearted yet getting worse by the minute, because he has no potions to control him. He's also a werewolf and now he's in my world, where hes regarded as a hero. There's also this super evil villain who wants him dead. The only person he really can rely on is Remus whom he hates. And did I mention that his parents and Sirius are dead in that world?" Harry was shocked at his own sharp tone.
Everyone was looking quite taken aback by his sudden outburst; they were probably still expecting him to be evil, because he's in the other Harry's body.
"Am I the only one who sees a slight mishap here?! I need to go back, NOW!" Harry exclaimed just as Lily came stumbling out of the fireplace.
Harry visibly relaxed at the sight of his mother. "Who's leaving?" she said while elegantly brushing the soot off her purple dress robes.
"I am," Harry said angrily as his mother came over and gave him a big hug.
"Ohh, but we haven't got to know you yet. You see just like Harry before- before-," she looked around Dumbledore nodded. "Oh good you know, I wouldn't want to tell it again," she said looking rather sad.
"Lil' where's Prongs?" Sirius asked.
"He's on his way, he just thought he had a lead on a Shadow's hiding place."
"Right, did you tell him Sevvie's here?"
She laughed, "no but I'm sure he'll be delighted when he finds out."
"Do not call me that, wolf," Snape remarked at his nickname.
"Whatever Snapey" Sirius had a cheeky grin on his face as Snape rolled his eyes.
Harry was surprised a full argument didn't break out, he decided to ask a question he had been desperate to ask since he first saw them talking to each other. "Are you guys friends in this world?"
They both pulled odd faces at the same time, "With that? There are things more worthy of friendship stuck to the bottom of my shoe." Snape said a sour look on his face.
Harry expected this to anger his Godfather, instead he grinned.
"Yeah and Snape's better friends with shampoo than he will ever be with me, and that's saying something!" He laughed.
"Please don't tell me we are in your world." Snape said with distaste.
Harry grinned, "I could be very cruel now couldn't I? No, in fact you hated each other more, if that's possible in my world."
"Wait, we never said anything about hate, Harry" Sirius said suddenly serious. (A/N yes I know, I know! I could make a joke out of it but it's been done too many times!)
"I do get irritated your defence against the dark arts professor at times, but after all these long years working together you have to move past hate," Sirius said truthfully.
"I do not pretend to never have hated your Godfather, but we've all calmed down from out school days, and try to, put up with each other as best possible," Snape said. "Even when one of us is clearly delusional."
"Right, so does that mean you don't hate me in this world?" Harry said thinking about the way Snape treated him in his world, he defiantly seemed nicer in this world. Perhaps his time as a Death Eater made him bitter.
"I find it hard to hate a Slytherin, believe me potter, but the other Harry has done many things which test me to my limits. But that was only after your third year, you were actually alright before."
Harry's head was beginning to ache. "Slytherin…"
"Oh" said lily who had her arm around his shoulders, and had been listening intently to their conversation. "That was only after your third year, you see there weren't that many students left in Griffindor after he caused an outbreak of Feverius. So Alberforth suggested that you change into another house. You chose Slytherin, you said you weren't worthy of the other houses."
"Oh, that was stupid of me. Hang on Alberforth…isn't that your brother, Sir?" Harry asked Albus Dumbledore
"Yes, he's only been there a few years. He's good at controlling Harry when he gets out of control. He took over the headmaster's position after Professor Moody."
"Wait Mad-eye-moody! Headmaster, really?"
"Yeah, he wasn't headmaster for long, only a couple of years."
Harry laughed at the thought of Moody lecturing the school on constant vigilance. Then he thought about himself causing trouble for Moody. "Does Harry often get out of control?" He asked.
"Yes, it doesn't take much for him to loose his temper, especially when Draco Malfoy is near."
Despite himself Harry laughed, "Some things never change"
"Once he just looked at him and he slammed him into a wall and gave him a nose bleed which lasted half a day," Snape said looking annoyed at Harry.
"How was he not expelled?" Harry frowned.
"The truth is he's safest at school where he can be controlled and short of him killing someone we really have to keep him in school," Dumbledore said.
Harry looked disgusted, "so it doesn't matter if he just goes beating students up, as long as no one dies, then everything's fine!" Harry said sarcastically.
"Potter do you really think we would let that happen? The potions he takes are fairly good at controlling him he is well monitored. I doubt with all the spells on him that he could really do any sort of lasting damage on anyone," Snape snapped.
"These spells wouldn't happen to work across parallel universes would they?" Harry said, annoyed.
The silence he received confirmed his suspicions.
At this point James fell headfirst out of the fireplace, followed by Remus Lupin, Lily rushed to help them up Harry heard James mutter something about never liking Floo powder, he around at them all and said. "Wow, who died?"
"We did, apparently," Sirius said, a bitter tone to his voice.
Lots more explaining later and Remus, James and lily were all up-to-date on the Harry situation.
"I really hate to say this Harry, because you seem everything the other Harry was not, but I think you need to get back, before he does some serious damage to your life." James said taking in all the details of the new Harry.
"Yeah, though there's not much he can really do to ruin it even more," Harry smiled sadly.
"I wouldn't say that if I were you," Remus said not looking directly at him. He looked pretty much the same as in his other world, though if anything slightly older, 'I guess he aged with the guilt of hurting me and Sirius' he thought.
Harry pickled up the 'what if' stone and turned it around in the light.
"The slight problem you see, with getting back, is erm-"
"You cannot." Dumbledore said simply, everyone turned to look at him.
"Harry is this true?" James said looking worried.
"Yeah, I tried last night, I think it might be broken."
"I will have to do some research on the subject, Harry, but I should expect it is a one way ticket, that stone," Dumbledore said calmly.
"Ah" despite the unpleasant situation, which must no doubt be mounting in his rightful world, Harry grinned at his parents. "Looks like I'm here for some time."
A/N : sorry you won't be able to find out whether he is here to stay till two chapters time as next chapter we will be back with evil Harry. Horrah!
Reviews…
BabyBlu4 : thanks, hope you enjoyed this one too.
Gilthas : who's Raistlin and Drizzt? Yes you will have to post more often. You are naughty, trying to get out of it by blaming English homework. Tut, tut. Not quite the reason Harry has to take the potions, but you're sort of on the right tracks! Anyway you've just found out what happened, so…yeah! I don't quite know how no respond to the rest of your review, because it confused me, there's no much Anime in England!!!
Angel-liam : well, I could answer your question, but I think this chapter covered it! I took a bit of a risk to do the opposite to what everyone expects, but I am not writing this story for others. I am writing it for me, and the ideas I would like to explore. (I don't want to sound egotistical!) but I just love the positive response to my ideas. Its quite fun being controversial. Thanks I try really, really hard to update quickly. I know how annoying it can be.
Siripiritus : Wow such enthusiasm! Thanks loads!
PrincessSkywalkerOrgana : nope, see he isn't randomly evil! I don't blame him I would be evil if I was him!
Darkmoon Fleur : Yeah, I'm actually rather fond of him, bless his evil cotton socks! I think, before he can consider joining Voldie (and I'm not saying he will) he has to understand who Voldemort is and why he's in a different world. It'll all become clear in the end…I hope!
Silver pup : thanks, I love to be unique.
Authoress : well you didn't have to wait long!!!
Thanks reviewers, please, review again and tell me what you think, and any thoughts of what's up to come. Thanks loads! Next chapter is with evil Harry, again, he's a little pissed off!