Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Posted: April 3rd, 2010.
***
It was nine o'clock in the evening and the Auror Department was empty - as was common for this time of the day - save for two men arguing heatedly.
"Just for a few minutes-"
"No."
"I just want some time-"
"No."
"This is ridiculous! I should be allowed-"
"No."
"It's my right!"
"No."
"James! He's my godson, damn it!"
"You have no proof of that."
"James-"
"I said no."
Sirius glared at the man in front of him, the man keeping him from Harry.
"I have every right."
James looked up, suddenly furious, "You have as much right as I see fit to give you."
Sirius clenched his jaw, "Then see fit to give it to me."
"I could lose my job if I let you do this."
"He's your son!"
"No!" James yelled, looking a bit wild, "I have a son. I will not replace him just because he's different."
It was like a slap in the face and once again Sirius was reminded that his James was dead.
"Please." He whispered, begging for perhaps the first time in his life. "Please. I - he's all I have left."
"He needs to be interrogated first."
"Interrogated? Did you see what he looked like? He's been through hell, James, surely you can understand that!"
"You want to see him? Do you really?"
Sirius nodded enthusiastically, thinking James had finally seen the light.
"Well it's not going to happen."
***
Harry groaned and put his hand to his head, feeling the bump that wasn't there before.
'Apparently,' Harry thought sarcastically, 'A grown man weeping is still seen as a threat.'
After he had broken down - which, in Harry's mind, didn't happen - one of the Aurors shot a stunner at him. And with his luck, he landed on his head.
He sighed and reluctantly lifted his head off his hand to look at his surroundings. Harry was in a cell, and not a cozy one at that. His bed, he realized, was just a slab of stone and the chamber pot in the corner was the only other object in the room. The metal bars in front of him didn't look too friendly, either.
'If only the guys back home treated supposed threats like this, could've saved us a lot of trouble.' Of course, this meant Harry was secretly pleasedwith his current situation. A screech made him look up and instead of bars, there was large man.
"Suspect number 432-"
"Also known as Harry." He interrupted cheerfully.
"-I'm Auror Dent and I'm going to be the one doing the talking here, understand?" Harry eyed the wizard and decided he was going to have some fun with this one.
"Of course, sir. Please, take a seat." He smiled, patting the spot next to him on his oh-so comfortable stone slab.
"I thought I told you not to talk?" Dent asked menacingly after declining Harry's offer and choosing to stand instead.
"Oh, right. Must've slipped my mind, sir."
The Auror in front of him clenched his fists, clearly restraining himself from doing something Harry would call 'stupid'.
"Name, date of birth, and blood status."
Harry frowned, "What does my blood status have to do with anything."
"Ministry precautions."
And here he had thought this world's ministry was better than his own. 'Ha!'
"Harry James Potter, July 21st, 1980, and I refuse to answer the last question."
"You can't refuse to answer a question!" Dent exclaimed, jumping away from the wall he had been leaning on.
"No. I won't answer you because then that would be me encouraging prejudice. And I have fought against it since my first year." The fake smile that had been on Harry's face was gone now, replaced by an emotionless mask.
Auror Dent looked a little unsettled by Harry's response, "No matter, if you are indeed Potter's son, then I already have that bit of knowledge."
"Really? What if I'm not James' son? What then? Will your Ministry crumble because they can't place me in one of their classes?"
Something seemed to flicker in the Auror's eyes, but it came and went far too fast for Harry to put his finger on it.
"Occupation?" He asked, continuing his interrogation.
"Defense against any evil I may, or may not find." Harry said seriously.
"Excuse me?" Dent looked a bit confused.
Sighing, Harry answered, "An auror."
Dent eyed him suspiciously, "Number of days on the job?"
"Er - I kinda just got the job the day I showed up here. By the way, how long has that been?"
"Three days."
Harry nodded.
"You said you have been fighting prejudice since your first year, how is that?"
Harry knew the question would be brought up, but to be honest, he wasn't entirely prepared for it.
He took a shuddering breath before uttering one word, "Voldemort," with so much hatred that the man in front of him shrunk a little and quickly turned away.
***
James Potter walked with purpose through the Atrium and finally came to the Apparition point. Thinking 'Potter Manor', he disappeared.
'What am I going to tell Lily?' He asked himself as he reached the massive doors to his home. With a long, deep sigh, he opened the door and was greeted by the familiar scents of home. He could smell dinner wafting from kitchen and his younger children shrieking over who got to play the game next upstairs.
"Hello, dear." Lily said, giving him a smile and a peck on the lips, "Dinner's almost ready and you get the honors of calling the hooligans down to eat."
He grinned, making it as real as he possibly could, and turned to his second oldest child sitting at the kitchen counter, "Livy, can you set the table?"
"You know, Dad, you could've just said, 'your mother and I need to talk'." Livy smiled her 100 watt smile and flipped her auburn hair over her shoulders, making her way out of the kitchen.
James wrapped his arms around Lily's waist, "Listen, lily, I need to ask you something."
"Huh, well it must be important, or you would wait till after you filled your stomach." She joked.
"You know how this new Sirius came from another dimension?"
Lily nodded while mixing the potato salad.
"There's another one."
She sighed, "Are you asking to let this person stay with us because I don't like the idea of allowing a stranger into our home. We have our children to protect, James."
James nervously ran his hand through his hair, "I know! But this, this is different."
"You know how I feel about keeping this 'new' Sirius around. It's wrong. We had - still have - a Sirius of our own. Just because he disappeared doesn't mean we should replace him. He'll come back, you'll see. And I don't feel comfortable with the idea of replacing yet another person." She said, pleading with him.
"This person is the boy he's been looking for this whole time." He waited anxiously for Lily to understand what - and who - he meant.
She looked at him slowly, her expression changing from irritation to grief. "Harry?" she whispered.
"He's clean. I had Dent check him out. He's lost everything, Lily, everyone." James took a deep breath, "He also killed Voldemort."
"Meaning this isn't just about us, that we can't be selfish and ask them to go away?" Tears filled her eyes, "I don't want to give anything more to the Wizarding World, James, haven't we sacrificed enough?"
But even then, she sounded defeated, "Fine. Bring him home. But I don't want anything to do with them."
James nodded and dialed a number on his magic-enabled cell phone, "You're in."
***
Sirius sighed, leaning back against the stone wall and shooting anxious looks at his broken godson. This was not what he had been expecting.
After lazily waving the guard - Dent, if he remembered correctly - away and stepping into the cell, he had thought that Harry would run up to him - hug him - anything! But he didn't and the frustrating silence lingered between them like a plague.
Finally deciding that the direct approach would be best, he blurted, 'What happened' but noticing the anguished look on Harry's face, he quickly regretted it. He thought back to how this was so much easier when Harry was fifteen, even with Voldemort lurking in the back corners of the teenager's mind.
Hesitantly, Sirius wrapped his arm around his frail godson's shoulders, and hoped to God that he wouldn't pull away. At first, Harry was stiff, but then, he collapsed; folding himself into his godfather's arms.
"Everyone's dead." He whispered emotionlessly and Sirius involuntarily shivered, "Especially Voldemort. I made sure of it."
So his young godson had taken a life, and countless more if Sirius guessed right.
"I have a flat in London. We can go there now, if you'd like."
Harry mutely nodded and Sirius let go of him, if only for a moment and said, "I'm going to get your stuff. It'll take just a second and then we'll leave. Stay right here, okay?"
Fearing that the young man in front of him would break at the slightest nudge, Sirius quickly left, going to the holding area and taking the box labeled 'suspect 432' containing Harry's wand and glasses.
--
He set Harry on the couch, wrapping a thick blanket around him, and headed for the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Sirius watched as his godson nonchalantly looked around the small living room and he was suddenly glad that he had thought to give Harry back his glasses, but keep his wand. Harry was in no condition to wield that sort of power.
"Here," Sirius said, handing a warm cup of Britain's finest to Harry, and sitting down beside him. "Erm," He began, tapping the side of his cup nervously and glancing at the teenager, "It'll help. The tea, I mean." Harry nodded and took a cautious sip. Every movement of his, Sirius observed, was cautious.
"Sirius," Harry spoke abruptly, the word coming out hushed, "Tell me about them."
He didn't need to ask who Harry had meant, "James and Lily."
"Yes," But for some reason, he couldn't stand to look his godfather in the eye and chose instead to examine a cobweb in the corner, and if he tried hard enough, he could almost imagine a spider moving gracefully over it.
"They had more children after you. Jardon and Livy are sixteen year old twins and are just as much alike as they are different. And then there's brave little Kya, whose ten and always getting into mischief."
Harry motioned for Sirius to continue, not surprised that he had left out any mention of Harry. After all, he didn't need to know about himself.
"The Sirius of this world disappeared a year ago and hasn't been heard from since. It made talking to James extremely difficult. He thought I was trying to replace his Sirius, but I wasn't. I only wanted help getting into the Department of Mysteries so I could get back to finding you." Here, he paused, looking for the slightest hint of emotion on Harry's face, but he found none.
"Meeting Lily was even harder, for she didn't - and still doesn't - want anything to do with me. She insisted that James keep me away from her house and away from her children. Lily said, and I quote, 'By letting him into this home, James, you are betraying Sirius and giving up any hope of him returning!'. I'm still not sure how he convinced her to let me visit."
"I want to see them." Harry said, a frown on his face and his hands folded neatly in his lap.
"I don't think now's the right time. Maybe in a few days, but for now, you need to rest." Sirius said, getting up from the couch and handing Harry a pillow.
"Alright." With that, he stretched out across the oddly large sofa and fell asleep almost immediately.
"Goodnight, Harry." Sirius whispered before heading into his room and answering James' call.
"You're in."
Sirius hesitated for a moment, "He's asleep and I'm not going to wake him."
"Tomorrow, then?" James asked, sounding relieved.
"Tomorrow." Sirius agreed and then hung up. Now all he had to do was figure out how to tell Harry that his other self was at St. Mungos, serving a life sentence of insanity.
***
AN: Yes, I am saying that the Harry of this world was tortured with the Cruciatus instead of Neville's parents. How and why, however, will be revealed later. Along with what happened to the Longbottoms.