Harry Potter was late getting to bed the next evening. He had sat with Hermione in the Gryffindor common room, talking about the troll - or, rather, listening to Hermione worrying about how bad it could have been if Ron and he had not arrived right then. She did not question him further when he told her how he knew where she was ("A girl said something about you being there,") - which was fortunate, because Harry still wasn't sure quite how to explain his link. And if Hermione Granger got wind that Harry had some sort of link between alternate universes, she would never let it rest.

And alternate universes they were, he thought, as he made his way to the dorm. They had to be. One of the girls had killed the defense professor, while another one stunned hers - only to find that both had been possessed. Did that mean his Quirrell was possessed as well? Dumbledore surely would have noticed if one of her professors was carrying the Dark Lord around on his head, right?

As Harry quietly began getting ready for bed (his roommates being already asleep), his thoughts continued to consider the implications. If there were versions of him in these other worlds, and Hermione, maybe there were other versions of Ron as well. Neville? The Headmistress? His Dad?

His Mom?

The buzz at the back of his mind, the one that told him his alternates were already chatting, had grown louder as he closed the curtains on his bed. As he quieted his thoughts and brought the link to the surface, he heard the beginnings of a lively conversation.

Spellforged talked about the visit his father had had with Headmaster Dumbledore, and how the two rarely got along. As he described the encounter, and Director Ragnok's reaction to the attack, Harry thought about that piece of information. So Headmistress Dumbledore is actually Headmaster Dumbledore in his world? Wow.

Harry wondered if Ragnok was the Director of Gringott's in his world as well. And then decided it wouldn't matter. Greetings, Director, you don't know me, but in another reality you adopted me after my only remaining relatives got killed. Want to have lunch?

Spellforged was talking to Marigold now, and Harry could tell that she was still upset at the events of Halloween. He listened as Spellforged and the other Harry reassured her, while he and Rose remained silent. After a few moments, he found himself wondering why he was thinking about Uncle Moony - but the calm words of Spellforged made the comparison obvious.

Before long, Rose drew the group's attention to the nundu in the room - Voldemort.

"Professor Snape won't tell me what happened, but Quirrell was gone today and his classes were cancelled for all of next week." she reported. "Between what Daphne and I saw, and what happened to Marigold's Quirrell, it's a good bet that the others are carrying Voldemort around as well."

Other Harry spoke up. "My scar hurts whenever I look at him. If he were just a nervous professor, that wouldn't happen, right? So he's here."

"Here too," Harry decided to speak up for the first time. "And it's the same - I've never had pain in my scar like this."

"We need to be cautious." began Spellforged. "Especially if touching Professor Quirrell will kill him somehow. Marigold had the whole great hall as witnesses. But if we ambush him in his classroom, for example, there will be some hard questions." Harry could almost picture the look of contemplation on the boy's face - easily done, seeing as it was likely his face too.

"Don't forget," said Rose, "Our worlds are different. Not that different, or else there wouldn't be one of us there, but different enough that I was a boy in some of them. There might be other changes."

Other Harry summed up the discussion, even though it would be another twenty minutes before the quintet ended the conference and went to bed. "If Voldemort is here, in all five worlds, we can't just do nothing."


The next week's discussion brought more revelations. This time, Harry was waiting when Spellforged joined the link.

"You seem restless, Harry." said the Ravenclaw. "Nervous?"

"It's not every day you have your first real game of quidditch. Dad has run me through chaser drills since I could hold a broom - I know I can do this."

Spellforged chuckled. "But?"

Harry couldn't help but grin. "But I can barely sit still. What about you, did McGonagall try to get you playing as well?"

"Nope. Maybe it comes from growing up underground, but I've never been a great flier." He paused. "I didn't even leave the ground during lessons. It probably helped that we had lessons with the Hufflepuffs - from what Harry said, your lessons were much more exciting."

Other Harry had joined them at this point. "Yeah, Malfoy turned out to be a bigger prat than we thought. I ended up grabbing something he stole from Neville Longbottom, and the Professor made me seeker."

"A chaser and a seeker, hmmm…" mused Spellforged. "I wonder if the girls play?"

"Not me," said Marigold, speaking up for the first time. "I stayed on the ground and cushioned Neville, so Malfoy never had a chance for his shenanigans."

"Nor I," said Rose. "Slytherin already has a seeker. And taking his slot on the roster would bring more attention than I'd like. No thank you."

"I never really considered playing seeker, so they moved Alicia Spinnet over - she was a reserve seeker last year." said Harry. "Dad was a chaser, and he taught me some of his plays." The others were quiet at this, to the point that Harry wondered if he had lost his connection to the link somehow.

"Harry," Rose began. "When you say your dad, who do you mean?"

What? "My birth father. Senior Auror James Charlus Potter." He didn't know where this was going. "Why?"

More silence.

Rose took up the questioning - for that's how it felt, at first. Harry was still puzzled, and only grew more so when the quiet slytherin's voice began to speak. She sounds upset.

"Harry, we've been talking about how our worlds are different, but we're different too." She paused, as if she were trying to figure out how to approach the topic. "Let's start with your family. Your father is Lord Potter. Who is your mother?"

Harry couldn't see where she was going with this, but kept himself calm. "My mother was Lily Potter. She died ten years ago, saving me from Voldemort. My godmother helps out when Dad needs it, but it's usually just him and I and Uncle Padfoot."

"Who is your godmother?" Rose asked.

"Director Amelia Bones." Harry answered. "She has a niece in our year, or at least my Aunt Amelia does. Susan Bones, in Hufflepuff. If yours is anything like mine, I think you'd like her. We grew up together."

"Alright, and who is Padfoot?"

"Sirius Black, one of Dad's oldest friends and my Uncle in all but blood. He's the Lord Black, if Dad ever convinces him to take up his seat."

"So many differences," Spellforged muttered.

"Right," agreed Rose. "But we can talk about the others later. Harry," and here he could tell she was trying to be delicate. He could hear the emotion in her words, a rarity for the reserved Slytherin. "In my world, both James and Lily Potter died on that Halloween."

What?! "But, how…" Harry couldn't imagine growing up without his father. Losing his mom had been hard enough, even as young as he had been. The ghosts were plain on Dad's face, when he thought that Harry wasn't looking.

Rose pressed on. "I was taken to mom's sister, a woman named Petunia Dursley. She and her husband were technically my guardians."

"As was I," said Marigold. "Did they have a son? Dudley?"

"If you can call him that," snarked Rose. "Hagrid gave the lump a pig's tail and it looked like it belonged there."

"Some things are the same, then," said the other Harry. "I grew up at the Dursleys too. What about you, Spellforged?"

"I was placed there, at first." His voice was quiet, and Harry could tell that he was growing angry at what he was hearing. "They died when I was three, and the muggles placed me in foster care - but by sheer luck, the foster mother they assigned me to was a muggleborn witch, a cursebreaker at Gringott's. She realized who I was and went to the goblins for help. Her boss, then Assistant Director Ragnok, brought the request to his father, the director. When the director was hesitant to help, Ragnok solved the problem by adopting me himself. Grandfather was angry, but eventually realized the potential benefits to the nation."

"A bold move," remarked Rose.

"He denies it, but I think that adopting me, and then selling it as an opportunity to win allies among the 'wand-wavers' helped secure his place as Director, when grandfather retired. At the funeral, when the challenges should have taken place, no one stepped forward. That hasn't happened in centuries, and it meant that the nation stood behind my father - and me." It was clear from the reverence in his voice that Spellforged loved and respected his adoptive father. Again Harry wondered if that Ragnok had an analogue in his world.

"What bothers me," Spellforged continued, "is hearing how you three speak about the Dursleys." He seemed to be considering his words carefully. "They…. aren't welcoming, are they?"

No one wanted to speak up, until Marigold's quiet voice broke the silence. "I'd rather not discuss that now," she said, and in saying nothing, she said everything.

"Yeah, that's kind of what I figured." replied Spellforged. "I wish I could help."

"Me too." Harry heard, almost as a whisper, and realized that it had been Rose.

"So," the other Harry said. "Harry, your Dad lived, and your godmother helped out. Spellforged, did you have godparents who should have taken you?"

"Sort of. Madam Bones is my godmother as well, but she is also a high Ministry official - so there was no chance that the Nation would hand me over to her. I had been adopted by a goblin, so legally I was a citizen of the Goblin Nation - it would have been like handing the son of a goblin over. No one was willing to set that precedent. And the muggle arrangement was perfectly legal as well, so the Ministry had to accept it."

"What about your godfather?"

Spellforged's voice grew cold again. "My godfather is the one who betrayed us in 1981. Our house in Godric's Hollow was under the Fidelius - which means that only one person can reveal its location. My godfather was the secret keeper, and as soon as he could, the coward ran straight to Voldemort." Spellforged was speaking quietly, but there was death in every word. Harry could hear the anger, and it almost seemed as if he could feel the pain and rage across the link, it was that powerful.

"If they ever let him out of Azkaban, the goblins will drag him to the dueling pit, where I will kill him myself. Sirius Black is a dead man, he just doesn't know it yet."

Before he could even think about it, Harry spoke. "You mean Peter Pettigrew, right?"

"What?"

Harry took a deep breath. "This might be another thing that changes between our worlds. But Spellforged, I swear to you this is the truth. Uncle Sirius talked Dad into switching secret keepers. They told everyone that he was it, but when they cast the fidelius, they used Peter Pettigrew as the secret keeper." He sighed. "When Sirius got to the house, he woke Dad up. Dad was an auror, he knew that I had survived, but also that I had been Voldemort's target. So before escaping with me, Dad and Padfoot went to secure the area. And that's when they found wormtail, outside in the bushes, waiting for his master. The bastard died in our front yard at the end of my father's wand, his dark mark visible for all to see. Sirius was not the traitor, at least not in our world."

"Harry…" Marigold said. "Both of you. We don't know how things changed. Maybe he was the traitor in that world."

"Or maybe he framed Pettigrew and got away with the crime." Spellforged spat, bitterly.

"Harry," said Rose. "Does your uncle still have his magic?"

"Of course he does." replied Harry. Why would he lose his magic?

"And he's your sworn godfather, right?"

"Yes. Mom liked doing the old ceremony, with the magical oath and everything… oh."

"Oh?" asked Spellforged.

"If your Sirius still had his magic after the attack, then he hadn't violated his oath as your godfather." Rose wasn't sure if this would calm them down or not, but they were past that point now. She had to cut the knot, for no other solution presented itself. "When did they arrest him?"

For once, Spellforged did not know where she was going with this. "The next day, in muggle London. He had chased Pettigrew, and caught up with him. There was an explosion, and 12 muggles died."

"Chased him? Like, on foot?" the other Harry asked.

"No, they were…. /Groznak./" He breathed a heavy sigh. Father was going to be angry. "They were apparating."

Rose completed his thought. "...And you can't apparate without magic. His oath was intact."

"I'm sorry," said other Harry. "What oath?"

"Old families, when they choose godparents, will make them swear an oath to protect the child. Traditionally, that oath was made on one's own magic." Rose explained. "If you break the oath, then you break your promise to magic - which means that you lose the ability to use your magic."

"Sirius had his magic, after the attack. His oath was fine. Your Sirius Black didn't betray you."

Her words went unanswered, the group digesting what they had learned. Then Harry spoke up, and again his statement summed up the entire conversation.

"If our Siriuses didn't betray us, what about yours?"

All five of them had trouble sleeping that night.

AN: I can't really see canon Harry thinking of James-lived Harry as "Heir Potter", even if that's how I keep them straight in my notes. Rose, who made wizarding culture and practices her study the instant the hat said SLYTHERIN? (And who has the pureblooded heiress Daphne Greengrass as a coach?) Sure. Spellforged, who grew up in the wizarding world, via his adoptive mother? Maybe. James-lived Harry? Unlikely, even if the others are Heir or Heiress Potter - because he is the only one of the five who actually thinks of himself as the Potter Heir. Canon Harry? Nyet. So for this Harry, he'd probably think of the Canon Harry as "Other Harry" - and vice versa. Perhaps after the quidditch match they'll be Chaser Harry and Seeker Harry?

Yes, Marigold will eventually talk Spellforged into teaching the group how to swear in the Goblin tongue. Cat's out of the bag, kids.

Feedback, as always, is welcome.