His entire body was in pain. He didn't know how long he had been in pain, but it seemed like eternity. He was lying on something cold and rough and sticky with a sharp, metallic scent. His eyes opened, and he saw a tuft of brownish grass, splashed with blood, growing in the cracks of the cement he was lying on. The sky overhead was gray, and the drab yard and distant buildings were all gray.
Grunting slightly, he tried to sit up, but hissed with pain as his ribs throbbed. He shut his eyes tightly for a moment, but opened them when he heard familiar footsteps approaching.
He curled up warily and kept his eyes focused on the hem of the orphanage matron's dirty black dress. He was dimly aware of the blood that rolled down in bright red rivulets down his forearm from his elbow, but took no notice of it.
"Disgusting," she sneered. He glared balefully up at her. A spike of hatred surged through him, so strong that he felt a tinge of red color the edges of his vision. You'll die someday, he thought with cold conviction. He imagined himself ripping her face off, ripping away that face that would no longer hold contempt, but raw fear; he imagined tearing the skin off, patch by patch, and then smashing the bleeding head—
Harry jerked awake at the sound of murmured voices and a door opening. He kept his eyes shut, his breathing controlled, and his right arm darted to where his pillow was for his w— His wand was gone. Shit. Where am I? He always, always slept with a wand under his pillow, even though his wandless magic was more than simply proficient— Am I in the hospital wing?
The familiarity of one of the voices stilled all his thoughts.
"I doubt our visitor is truly asleep, Frank."
Harry's eyes snapped open, taking in the gray stones of the ceiling, and he turned his head, noting the faint pain in his neck and the pulse of a headache when he moved. "Albus?" he croaked. It is Albus, Harry thought with relief, taking in the purple-robed silver-bearded old man. His eyes were above to move to examine the headmaster's companion when he abruptly brought his gaze back to Albus's face. It was difficult to tell, because the only source of light was the dim paleness that streamed in through the door behind the headmaster and his companion, but—was that shock on Albus's face?
"Don't try anything," Albus's companion said harshly after a pause.
Harry blinked. What's going on? He wished he had his wand in his hand. He tried to sit up in a position better suited for dashing out the door, but discovered that his muscles wouldn't listen to him.
"I'm afraid you're in no position to move," Albus said apologetically, casting a rather stern glance at his companion. "You were suffering from some severe wounds when we found you in the dungeons of Nott manor."
Dungeons of Nott manor…? Harry blinked once, and then memory flooded him: the desperate plan, the hours of torture, the casting of the Avada Kedavra, the fury of the reflection, the strange, silvery thing, and then the pain—
"I…" He blinked. No wonder I'm hurting all over, he thought. "Is he dead, Albus?"
There was a stunned sort of silence. Harry glanced up, ignoring the throb at his temples.
"Who, dead?" the headmaster asked, in the gentle voice Harry that knew was meant to invite the victim to blab on to the caring and grandfatherly headmaster.
Something's definitely wrong, Harry thought, heart clenching with trepidation. How can Albus not know—unless this isn't Albus? But—this would be the stupidest attempt at impersonation, and— He frowned. "Voldemort." He looked up. "Did it work? Is he dead?"
Dead silence. At any other time, Harry would have smirked at the stunned look on Albus's face.
"I'm afraid," Albus said, when his companion opened his mouth, "that I do not quite understand you."
Harry blinked and realized what else it was that was off. The formality—Albus was never this formal to him, even before they had their—not really friendship, but old men's camaraderie. Am I under a glamour charm of some sort? But Albus isn't that stupid to be fooled—
"The plan…" Harry said slowly, flicking his gaze from the headmaster to his companion. "To reflect the—" He paused. And squinted, because Albus's companion, the one named Frank, was—terribly familiar: the wispy blond hair, the stocky build— "Neville?"
Albus and the man named Frank exchanged glances. "Neville," he said, "is my father. Sir Neville Ulfric Longbottom."
Harry blinked. The pounding of his headache was not helping his brain processes; when did Neville have a middle name? And how can Neville have had—this is impossible, it's—
Then it clicked. Frank Longbottom.
He drew a sharp breath, ignoring the pain of his ribs. "What year is it, headmaster?" he asked, glancing up at the half-moon spectacles and penetrating blue eyes that he was all but immune to by now.
Albus Dumbledore frowned. "1977."
Harry closed his eyes. That explained everything, and—damn it. Damn it, he cursed wearily, his headache throbbing more heavily now. How had he suddenly gone back twenty-three years? All he could remember was (he shivered) the pain. Perhaps Voldemort had cast upon him a final curse? Or one of his Death-Eaters. But time-travel wasn't much of revenge, especially successfully done time-travel (he might have been smeared quite messily across several years if it hadn't been), and besides, successful time-travel was a very tricky thing, and only the most-skilled, most-powerful could even attempt it…
"Why?"
Harry opened his eyes, feeling old and grim and worn. "I am from the year 2000."
There was a stunned silence. Harry let his eyes close again. Stupid headache, he thought. Why is it that these things always happen to me? He let the thought slide away like a raindrop over the smooth surface of a statue. It was his fate, and nothing came from questioning it.
"Are you willing to repeat that under Veritaserum?"
"Y—no," Harry said, opening his eyes again. Veritaserum would make him far too vulnerable, and he knew Albus would not have any qualms in asking further once he was under the grips of the truth serum. He wouldn't risk making a paradox. "But I am willing to say that under the Medallis Veritas."
"Very well," Albus said. He took out a battered lead disk with a silver chain and handed it Longbottom. Harry lifted his head, ignoring the intensification of his headache, and let the medallion fall onto his chest. He noticed that under the sheets he was wearing white hospital robes—he remembered being stripped before the torture session—and then Albus asked the question.
"Are you truly from the year 2000?"
Harry didn't bother sitting up. "I am from the year 2000," he intoned, feeling the magic of the medallion weaving around him like a cocoon. The medallion pulsed silver.
Albus nodded, his silver beard folding slightly before straightening. Harry realized for the first time that it wasn't white, as he'd remembered: in the light of the torch that Longbottom had conjured, it looked almost black. "Did you willingly take on the Dark Mark on your face and chest?"
Harry froze. His mind strove to make sense of the words, and then he remembered. He lifted his hand (Longbottom tensed) and touched his chest, feeling the scabs… He moved his hand to his face, and traced where he knew the Dark Mark to be… I'd forgotten, he thought numbly.
"I… no."
The medallion heated and turned an ugly red and he suppressed a wince. Perhaps he had accepted the Dark Mark willingly, as he had accepted every curse and whip and thrust, because he hadn't been able to afford the strength to be defiant, and because he had let his mind drift away as the pain had engulfed his body.
Harry's eyes went to Longbottom's wand, which was pointed at him unwaveringly.
"I do not support or intend to support Voldemort," Harry said flatly. The medallion pulsed in agreement. Longbottom's wand wavered, and the auror glanced at the headmaster. Harry glanced too, and recognized the inscrutable expression in those penetrating blue eyes.
"I do not know how I ended up here, three years before I was born," Harry continued. The medallion glowed softly. "I would like to return, for I have unfinished business."
"Time travel is tricky business," Albus Dumbledore said after a pause. "It is unheard of to travel more than a week, and without finesse or power, traveling too much too quickly can shatter the soul. We'll try to help you, my boy, but in the meantime…" A smile crept over the headmaster's face, a smile that didn't fool Harry for a second. "Where did you go to school?"
"Hogwarts," Harry replied, wondering what the old wizard was getting at.
"Why don't you enroll in Hogwarts as a seventh year, where you will be protected, while I research and try to find a way to send you back in time?"
Frank Longbottom sputtered incredulously. "But Albus, he—"
"In no supports or intends to support Voldemort," Albus finished firmly.
The auror ended his sputters and grumbled something about being far too trusting and forgiving and having mental difficulties. Albus only smiled brilliantly.
Harry managed a crooked grin, though his insides had frozen over. Don't think you can trick me, Albus Dumbledore, Harry thought, briefly meeting the twinkling blue eyes. I know what you're intending to do, just as I know which wandless little spell you're using to produce that damnable twinkle. Do you think I don't know that you are only keeping me at Hogwarts so that I'm under your thumb? Do you think I don't know that you're only putting off Longbottom taking me to a dank Ministry cell because I'm too curious, too dangerous, too wild-card a specimen to let loose? Do you think I don't know that I have no choice? He felt a vague prickly feeling settle over him as the headmaster leaned over him and removed the medallion from around his neck like some caring old man tending his sick grandson. Harry suppressed the urge to brush off those gnarled hands. Do you think I cannot feel the tracking spell you've put on me?
He quickly stomped on his thoughts. No, he told himself. You forget. This Albus isn't your Albus, so don't—don't take it so personally. This Albus has no reason to trust you, and you can hardly expect otherwise. He is just another enemy. Harry closed his eyes and let the thought sweep over him like the bite of wintry air, leaving him a little more worn, a little more alone, in a time that wasn't his own.
He heaved a mental sigh. The Albus Dumbledore of his time had become much more tolerable when he'd stopped trying to manipulate him. The old wizard had been almost—pleasant. Perhaps it was because Harry was the only one who saw through the twinkling eyes and grandfatherly façade and Albus was the only one who knew the Harry beneath the reassuring, Gryffindor mask: they were like chess opponents, who'd played so many games and gone through so many of life's trials and were trapped in a war so fierce that the enmity had muddled into something that could only be described by the camaraderie of old veterans.
"But I'm twenty, I'd look too old," Harry protested weakly, because it would be suspicious if he didn't.
"Nonsense!" Albus cried.
"And the curriculum," Harry added. "I know it already…"
"Nothing wrong in reviewing what you know. And you'll be visiting Hogwarts again."
Visit again, Harry thought with a humorless mental laugh. It's not I who trapped you in a secret chamber in Hogwarts and forced you to mold yourself into a bloody weapon there without seeing a single soul for three years. "If you say so, headmaster." And then, for good measure, and because he knew that, as hardened as Albus was, he would still feel that splinter of guilt and doubt, Harry added with a smile that he knew made him look wan and selfless, "I trust you, Albus."
Harry hid the smirk as he noticed the blue eyes flash a moment with pain. Then he let his eyes slide close, and felt the headache overtake him.
The day was unusually cold for the end of August.
Harry emerged from the Leaky Cauldron and touched the brick that would open to Diagon Alley. He stepped in and stopped, marveling at the tide of people. Shoppers rushed and strolled, chatted and squabbled; children gazed in shops and shrieked and darted about; strange, cloaked creatures stayed in the shadows and disappeared into dark alleys; a baby gazed about with eyes wide with innocent wonder.
And none of them looked at him (besides the hag who looked at everyone with a disturbingly famished look in her eyes).
In the castle, none of the students would ever rush past without whispering or sending him awed looks; in the Order meetings, and even those he dealt with regularly tended to nod dumbly when he said something, even if it was to send them to their deaths; on the streets—
He smiled wryly, humorlessly as he remembered the debacle that followed him everywhere on the streets—unless, that is, the streets were littered with bodies and curdled with black smoke.
He shook his head and stepped towards Madam Malkins, contenting himself to be glad that he didn't need to use his "Gryffindor" mask (yet).
"Hogwarts robes, please," he said to a girl who looked vaguely familiar.
"This way, please," she said, eying his clothing with distaste and leading him deeper into the shop. The tape measure danced about him, and he gazed out the window in troubled thought.
After dipping in and out of consciousness and dreaming confused dreams amidst bouts of sleeping potion and jerking himself awake when the pain of his healing body flung him out of sleep, he had finally made a complete recovery. Albus had cheerfully cast a glamour charm on his Dark Marks and found him an assortment of clothes (fortunately, all the clothes at wherever-they-were were in drab colors, minimizing the damage of Albus's deplorable fashion sense). Then the headmaster made a big show of trustingly letting him go free in Diagon Alley, and Harry had made a big show of smiling in thanks while he ignored the buzzing that he knew was the tracking spell.
It was during that period of restless recovery that he realized something that would make his situation all the more difficult to bear: thanks to Albus's machinations, he was going to be his parents' classmate. He would see Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin, and (cold anger clenched itself around his heart fleetingly) Peter Pettigrew, and Severus Snape. They'd be his classmates, and—God—possibly roommates.
How am I going to prevent a paradox? he thought, though he knew that he would be successful in preventing a paradox—his past was proof of that. The comfort, however, was cold. Perhaps I died on the train and never met them, he thought glumly.
He sighed inwardly. There was no use struggling with fate and with things he couldn't change. Accepting fate was a bitter skill he had learned and mastered. He let his mind wander, and was engrossed in watching a pink-clad toddler trying to grab a squelchy eyeball when he felt a bag get thrust into his hands.
"There's some more wizard's wear in the back," the girl said, indicating with a nod of her head. "You might find something there."
"Right," Harry said, remembering that he didn't have any underclothes besides this set of what Albus had forced him to wear, and headed towards the back of Madam Malkin's.
He paid and walked out of the shop wearing comfortable Muggle shirts and trousers that fitted perfectly, and glanced back to where he'd last seen the toddler. The toddler was in a smiling young woman's arms now, and next to her was a young man, who had one arm around his wife's shoulder and one tickling the toddler's chin; and as Harry watched, he was struck by how perfect the triangle they formed was.
He turned and walked into Ollivander's, squashing the sharp spike of emotion before he could even decipher what it was.
The dark store was like a recluse's hideout compared to the bustling street outside. Once, a long time ago, the silence would have unnerved him, but now it felt almost comfortable.
He turned around swiftly at the quiet patter of footsteps, and the shopkeeper's eyes widened for a moment as they face each other. Probably doesn't have many customers who can catch him sneaking on them, Harry thought humorlessly.
"How may I help you, Mr.…"
"Frost," Harry said. "Jonathan Frost. I need a new wand."
The widened eyes took on an intrigued gleam. "Did you have a wand before? A wand that suited you?"
Harry hesitated. If I take my holly and phoenix feather wand now, I'd create a paradox, he thought with a trace of panic and bewilderment; but a different voice added wisely, Ah, but you didn't take that wand. No matter what you do now, you won't have taken that wand, because it was still there. He paused for a moment at the rather surrealistic thought. "No," he said at last.
"Wand hand?"
"I'm ambidextrous"—a truly useful skill, one he had perfected per Albus's suggestion—"but I prefer my right hand."
"Most interesting," Ollivander murmured. He pulled a box out from his shelf. "Try this one," he ordered. "Cherry and unicorn hair. Firm. Good for Transfiguration."
Harry took it and wasn't surprised when it was snatched out of his hand barely a moment later.
"Oak and dragon heartstring. Inflexible. Nice dueling wand."
Again the wand was snatched out of his hand before he could even get a good grip.
"Willow and phoenix feather. Swishy. Good for charms and healing."
The stack on the spindly chair grew higher and higher, and after Ollivander cheerfully went to the door and put a "CLOSED" sign up, Harry began to get worried. It seemed as though hours had passed. What if his only match was the holly and phoenix feather wand?
"Redwood and basilisk fang. Stiff. Good for curses."
Harry held it for a moment before it was taken away once more. Dust motes flew through the air, sparkling in the slanting light of the afternoon sun, when Ollivander came back at last with a gleam in his eye and a box that brought a sinking feeling to his stomach.
"Let's try this one. Holly and phoenix feather. Powerful wand, this one is."
Harry picked up the wand and gripped it. The rush of power, flowing like a phoenix song, nearly made him forget the pit of dread in his stomach, but as he lifted his arm, the feeling of pure completion abruptly flew away, and he was left with sense of wrongness, and wand that wasn't his.
"Not quite," Ollivander said, snatching away the wand, and handing him another.
Harry took it in something of a daze. You're hardly the boy you were at age eleven, he told himself. But to be rejected by the wand that had been more faithful than any human could be, to which he'd identified himself, that was yet another inexorable link to his destiny to fight Voldemort—
"Amazing," Ollivander murmured, a few wands later. His pale eyes gleamed. "It seems that none of the wands I have made suit you. I believe… I believe that I will have to make you one."
"Oh," said Harry cautiously. It was a little difficult to believe that all the wands—there must've been thousands, he realized—had rejected him. "Um. How much will it cost?"
Ollivander was already disappearing into a back room. Harry followed. "It is rare that I would have the chance to create a wand for a customer as unusual as you," the shopkeeper said distractedly. "Come along."
The room seemed smaller than it really was in the dim red light of a single candle that burned on a battered worktable. Next to the table was a large, battered cauldron. Harry peered inside, and saw a silvery liquid shimmer.
"A drop of you blood, please, Mr. Frost," the wandmaker murmured, holding a scalpel in his hand.
Harry hesitated a moment and nodded, extending his hand.
The wandmaker swiftly pricked Harry's left index finger and squeezed out a drop of blood. "It is the wand that chooses the wizard, you know," Ollivander muttered, tapping Harry's finger with his own wand. The wound healed. "The weaker the wizard, the easier it is for the wand to agree with him."
Harry watched the drop of his blood diffuse through the silver solution. A bubble rose from the depths and broke the surface with a little gloop.
"Not so with powerful wizards," Ollivander continued, staring intently as another bubble rose. Harry wondered briefly if there was some message in the bubbles, like the tealeaves in Trelawney's tower. "An unsuited wand will be cowed by the power," the wandmaker muttered as he crept to a rickety cabinet in the back of the room. "True, one may gain or lose power, but that usually occurs after the wand has bonded to the wizard, and so they stay true to each other."
Harry watched the old wandmaker return with two halves of a very dark wood and lay them on the battered worktable. With his wand, Ollivander began to trace runes around the two halves of wood. Harry recognized a few of them, shimmering and moving like spirits in the flickering candlelight: the sign of askance, the sign of harmony, the universal rune of power…
"Wandmaking is like poetry. My muse will come and goes without command, and I'll be lucky to have her long enough to complete a masterpiece." Ollivander paused before scratching out the last, glittering rune. "But sometimes, there is inspiration. Your challenge, my tricky customer, is the best gift you can grant an old wandmaker."
Ollivander glanced up and caught Harry's eye. "Your wood is Yggdrasil. A wizard's tree. The strongest, the rarest, the most dangerous of woods. None other would work for you. It is something I should have suspected."
Harry kept his expression carefully blank, not letting any of his whirling emotions show. He'd heard of Yggdrasil in Nordic myths Hermione had blathered about, and never even suspected that the tree was real. He let himself entertain, for a brief moment, the fantasy of being chosen not by the Yggdrasil but by some common, harmless wand, but he brushed aside the thought and lowered his gaze to scrutinize the two halves of dark wood on the table before him. The smooth surfaces didn't gleam in the candlelight.
"But your core." The wandmaker slowly moved to a cabinet at the other end of the room and took out a plain stone basin.
"It is strange," Ollivander murmured, for the first time sounding hesitant. "I do not remember this core…" He set the basin at one end of the worktable. Harry frowned: in what seemed to be a cloud of the mist that would curl up over a pensieve was a single strand of black hair.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A strand of hair in a memory," the wandmaker said after a long pause, as though he'd dug up a memory long buried.
Harry continued to stare at the hair, floating in the silver cloud of memory, and pretended to ignore Ollivander's scrutiny. "What is the hair from?"
"A… wizard."
Harry blinked. "Oh."
Ollivander shook his head, still perplexed. "The wand chooses the wizard. It is strange, however, that I do not remember collecting this core…" He levitated the core into the air and between the two halves of dark Yggdrasil wood. The runes glowed suddenly, and Harry shivered at the power that radiated from them. The two halves of wood clasped together.
"Hold it!" Ollivander ordered, a note of command that Harry hadn't heard before in the wandmaker's voice. "Now!"
Harry reached forth and gripped the wand—and it was as though he were inside thunder, inside the white lightning that reached every dark corner and hidden nook; and Harry felt his breath taken away as the wand sang through him, cutting past all his walls and layers and memories, and deeper yet into places he didn't know existed, and as his breath caught in the timeless space, he thought he felt—the strangest thing, like a memory that sent thrills sparking down his spine, something that—
And then it was over.
"Thirteen and a half inches, Yggdrasil and an unknown core," Ollivander murmured, pale eyes shining. "An excellent wand, Mr. Frost. May you put it in good use."
Harry nodded dumbly and didn't protest nearly as much as he might have when Ollivander refused payment.
He stepped out of the shop and the wash of voices and sounds and busy end-of-the-summer air of an unusually cold August day broke his daze. He lifted the wand before his face and looked at it, felt it in his hands. Thirteen and a half inches: the exact length, he remembered suddenly, of Voldemort's wand.
He pushed aside the thought (coincidence, he told himself), slipped his wand into his sleeve, and wandlessly bound it to his forearm the way a wand holster would. He moved towards Flourish and Blotts, and was suddenly overtaken by a feeling of being utterly lost, of loneliness, like a cliff—battered by the bitter ocean waves and parched by the relentless sun. Twenty-three years in the past, with a different name, two Dark Marks branded on his body, bereft of Albus's trust, totally alone, and with a wand that wasn't his— He turned, perhaps to distract himself by looking into the shop window, but saw only his own reflection. Why can't it have ended? his eyes asked plaintively, briefly flashing with pain.
He turned away, eyes flat and hard again. There's no use whining, damn it, he told himself coldly. He had to find a way to return, because he did not know whether Voldemort was truly dead yet, and he couldn't and wouldn't rest until either he or the Dark Lord was dead beyond any shadow of doubt.
Thinking and repeating that ultimatum calmed him somewhat, and he entered Flourish and Blotts to buy the required seventh-year books, ignoring the thickening of the ice around his heart.
That night, he dreamed a dream, so real it seemed a memory, of a boy, all alone, in a cold, gray orphanage. He dreamed of the matron's cruel eye and crueler sneer, of the boys who made his blood splatter on the cement, and the hours under a twisted tree; he dreamed of hours remembering his mother's words to him, remembering his destiny, and feeling so alone and empty that there was nothing left except for poisonous hatred, which grew and grew and grew until he—
Then he awoke, feeling dazed, and was careful not to think of the dream as he boarded a Muggle taxi to Platform 9¾ and sat in anonymity and silence in the backmost compartment all the way to Hogwarts.