When Harry came to, it was in a cot that looked to be brand new, or rather freshly conjured. That made sense, it seemed like no one had inhabited the manor for quite some time. He vaguely wondered if this is where his father was raised, or if it was at Godric's Hollow, surely Sirius mentioned something about it when he told Harry about his running away. He couldn't quite remember to be honest.

He looked to his side and sure enough, there he was, the Voldemort baby. He must have been placed in the same cot as him to save energy, apparently conjuring furniture was fairly tiring. Especially after the night the family had, it was quite obvious why sharing space might be helpful.

Harry took full opportunity of his consciousness to look over the other child properly, he just needed to see it to really believe it, but there he was, the same boy that he encountered in the Chamber of Secrets, all those years ago. As a baby of course, It was rather difficult to tell, considering that most babies look pretty much the same, but this was a face seared into his memory, as he died on the stony cold floor, leering down at him gleefully.

He suppressed a shudder, 'Complete psychopath, even at that age.' So there was the question. Was this boy next to him the evil man that had ruined his life, along with so many others, in so many different ways? There was no chance that this was some cosmic coincidence, even he wasn't that unlucky. This boy must have something to do with Harry's transportation between dimensions, he just had to.

Either way, Harry just couldn't risk falling for this trick, whatever it was. If it wasn't to attack Dumbledore last night, it was clearly supposed to be some sort of long-con evil scheme. He wasn't going to fall for it, he had too much experience with Snake-face to make the same mistakes again.

But this was insane! He was thinking as though he was staying here! But then, would that really be so bad?

'No! Harry don't you dare, you don't belong here, you have to work on a way home, or a way of communicating to the order!' Shrieked the voice in his head that sounded much like Hermione.

'But it's the only chance I'll get to know my parents, to be back with Sirius again, and Remus, and everyone that died. Am I not allowed to be selfish just this once?' Reasoned the same voice he heard when he was under the Imperius.

'And what about your friends, back home? You're just leaving us? I thought you were better than that, but I clearly not.'

'I'm not leaving you forever, maybe a few years, I'll start working on a way home as soon as I can, but I just want time. Is that so wrong? Everyone at home has each other, you and Ron are finally together, Neville and Luna had started seeing each other when I left, you all seem happy. You can survive a few years of me getting to know my parents. And what about the friends I'm not leaving? What about the ones that died? The ones that might never have to die if I'm here?'

The Hermione like voice went quiet for a moment, 'It isn't your place to change the fate of this world, and what about the Harry here, the body you're inhabiting? What if you're preventing him from growing up with his parents?'

'I know there are a lot of risks, and I know it's selfish, but what if I'm not? What if the Harry who's body I'm in is dead, and leaving would leave some sort of vegetable, or worse? Which is crueller, leaving my friends for a few years, to get to know my parents, or going home, and leaving a baby's corpse for my parents to cry over? And if the other Harry is still existing and fine, he'll be back in a few years.'

That was it, he was going to stay, for a few years, and work on a way home. This was a manor, there must be a library of sort around here, but in the mean time, couldn't he enjoy this twist of fate that had brought him to the people he had hoped, for all of his life, to meet? Yes, he thought. He was definitely going to stay.

And with that thought, Harry had just changed the course of a history.

But of course that meant he had to pretend to be a regular 15 month-old. Well, he could be an intelligent 15 month-old. He had researched about when kids learned how to read, while he was looking after Teddy for the weekend, and he knew it often around four or five. Harry wasn't a huge reader to be honest, but he would have to start reading to research how to get home, so he supposed he could try to pretend to read at three, if he was pushing it.

However there was still the issue of last night, he had Occlumency shields. Perfect ones, from the sound of it. They had to be some kind of result of the Dimension shift, and frankly, it was very odd. He didn't feel any different from usual with them, but that was probably the point, it wouldn't be very convenient to become emotionally dead or something, as much as Snape had seemed to be at times.

Or, of course, they had somehow been caused by the murder-toddler next to him. That was another important issue to think about if he was staying there, what to do about 'Tom Potter'. He couldn't say anything to anyone, it would then involve revealing himself, and then he would have to leave prematurely. It was probably safe to keep watch, for now, as this did look like a long-con, likely even years long. But that didn't mean by any means that he would fall for the act.

As though sensing he was being thought about, the devil himself, ('literally', thought Harry) began to blink his big blue eyes open. After yawning slightly, he caught sight of Harry, and a joyful smile appeared on his face.

'Hawwy' He clapped happily. Harry remembered babies usually start speaking at about 1, which he learnt from his research for Teddy, which would obviously be coming in handy with blending in, but Tom seemed to have some difficulty with his Rs, very common with babies. It was usually one of the hardest noises to pronounce.

While he thinking, the other boy had clearly become agitated by his lack of response, and had collapsed on his leg, in some sort of pseudo-hug.

'Well, if there was ever a time to learn how to use baby-arms…' Harry sighed, as he attempted to move his arms to push the other boy off him, it was more difficult, considering he was used to adult coordination, but he was clearly a bit more able than the other boy at least, because he easily grabbed the other boy's shoulders, and pushed him away.

After a moment of surprised silence, Tom cried out in sheer rejection.

'Bloody hell, you would have thought I broke his heart!' But then, to a toddler, this must seem like exactly that. It was that scene that James Potter walked into, a little Tom crying his little heart out, and an oddly exasperated looking Harry.

"Oh dear, what happened here, hmm?" He asked, more to himself, as he picked up Tom, and began to rock him on his hip. Tom quickly calmed down, soon giggling as James made ridiculous faces at him. Harry didn't notice the passage of time; he was staring at the man he now knew to be good with small children, or at least cheering them up. Harry was staring at his face, almost greedily, memorizing every detail, that dent on his nose from wearing glasses constantly, the warm hazel eyes, the slight chip on his right canine, possibly from some prank-gone-wrong that he dying to learn about.

'Well,' he thought, 'a few years definitely won't hurt.'

Hi, just thought i'd let you know that there's going to be a poll.

I'm going to give Harry and Tom a little sibling. Bear in mind that the character won't be huge, they'll be a younger sibling, and won't do much for several years, and will be basically absent while the boys are at school. I just thought it'd be nice to add to show the different relationships in this story. This will be the only sibling they receive, James and Lily aren't machines you know, sometimes i feel bad for them in other fanfictions, it seems like they never get a moment of child-free peace.

The poll is just on whether the sibling is a girl or a boy. I know that a girl might even some things out, but having three boys would be quite a cute little trio. Please do vote if you're interested.