Summary: Harry, now 30 year old war commander and leader of the 'Light' side, has finally decided he's had enough. However, before he has the chance to do much of anything, he's whisked away to another place, a place too good to be true. And is it? Read as Harry meets people he had thought he'd never see again, fights people he had never thought he'd ever have to fight, and plays mind games with his one true equal. Will he succeed? Or will he commit the act he wanted to do when he first went to look in that mirror?

Warnings: First off, LOTS OF CURSING. It shouldn't be a big deal to anyone under the age of 10, but I'll add it in there anyway. I'm a big ol' potty mouth. :D Also, I don't do British writing. SO SORRY. If it really bothers you, you can sign up to be my beta and british my story up. But I don't think most care. Ummmm traumatizing stuff. Harry has been through some shit. A 16 long war will do that to anyone. And because of that, this Harry won't exactly be...sane. He's a little off, and he's done some REALLY bad stuff. I'll talk about that later though.

What this Harry will be like: I honestly wish everyone would do this. This Harry will be pretty much canon. HOWEVER! Because he's older and therefore wiser, he WILL be different. For one, he won't be angsty like a teenager, and he will have quite a bit of knowledge. Over his lifetime he will have learned some wicked spells and will have strategic abilities/ common sense. He just won't be book smart is all. That was always Hermione. Also, this Harry will be absolute NO BULLSHIT. He doesn't play. :D What 30 year old war hero would? I'm also making him VERY badass and pretty powerful so there. Hope you like.

Timeframe: I'll get into what actually happened in this universe later, probably next chapter, but just know that Harry would have been 16 in this universe if he hadn't of died. Everything else you'll learn in time. :)

Relationships: Harry is NOT gonna get with anyone in this new universe. Just...no. Just like in canon he WAS with Ginny (even though I hate that pairing) but this Ginny will be 15 soooooo no. Not gonna happen. If anything, he'll have a paternal love for all the copies of his loved ones.

Harry's universe: Like I said, canon. Up until the final battle of course. I'll get into this later, likely next chapter, but just in case you were confused, just know you'll get the info soon.

Disclaimer: I own nothing you can tell is Rowlings. All characters and whatnot are hers. However, I'm not gonna say I completely own this plotline because a lot of people have used it. If you're an asshole author that thinks because they thought of a fanfiction idea that its completely yours, then fuck you, because this plotline IS MINE SO GO AWAY.

Chapter 2

A Whole New World

"And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three red-headed men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood.

'No - no - no!' someone was shouting. 'No! Fred! No!'

And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face."

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

What the f- Too-green eyes snapped open immediately and a thin battle-hardened body was already standing in a combative position before he could even so much as blink.

His heart didn't skip a beat as he took in his surrounding, thin fingers constantly switching in the need to act, but after so many years such urges were simply ignored. Life in war wasn't easy, and Gryffindor tendencies were quite useful at times, but not always. One of those situations just happened to be when you wake up in an unknown place with a hazy memory of what happened before you passed out.

Yes, screaming and attacking the door he could tell was unlocked, but warded, even from over here would not be the smartest decision he had ever made. Not from a long shot.

After one more second his body relaxed, but not completely. A soldier was never entirely lax until he was in the midst of friends or after a war was over, and sometimes not even then. So far, neither were true in Harry's case. Intelligent eyes soaked up all the facts he could obtain within the small room he had been placed in.

The place was nice enough, besides the bed, which was obviously made for medical patients. He could tell it was merely a guest room of some sort. Soft browns and creams made up the coloring while the bed glowed a harsh white.

Why would they switch the beds? How...odd.

Beside the bed was a single nightstand which stood one, cinnamon by the looks of it, candle, and a book he recognized to be Quidditch through the Ages. Harry couldn't help the nostalgic smile that overcame his clean? face. That had been a book both he and Ron could easily admit to reading and rereading, while Hermione had only read it for a single time in first year, but not out of enjoyment, but for educational purposes.

Only Hermione...Harry thought fondly with an easy smile on his face.

Suddenly, Harry heard the soft sounds of walking with only socks or bare feet and laid the book down gently in what was hopefully the same spot it had been in. He laid back down on the bed and wordlessly and wandlessly cast a few light protective charms on himself, just in case they decided to attack him right when they entered.

After a few more seconds the door opened with a slight Squeak! and Harry smelled what he recognized to be female perfume.

So I'm dealing with a woman. I can probably take her down physically, and magically I can outmatch most people, so I have no reason to fear. While it would be in my best interest to capture her, for I'm sure there are people here more powerful than me in both ways, and use her as leverage to escape, why would anyone wishing to harm me keep me in such accommodating quarters? And wouldn't they at least have me restrained? Something about this isn't right, and if they're allies I don't want to lose their trust. Best to act natural and kind until I learn more.

Right before the woman reached her bedside he slowly lifted his right hand to cover the yawn he forced out of himself. Green eyes opened themselves in a way he hoped looked relaxed and sleepy and jumped at what he saw.

Standing in front of him was someone he knew to be dead. Someone he had wished his whole life to meet.

Someone with eyes shockingly like his own.

She was incapacitated in under five seconds.

The first two had been spent leaping out of bed, grabbing her by the neck, and accio-ing her wand. After that he quickly batted away her attempts at attacking him with her own wandless magic, which were admittedly quite powerful, but no match for his.

Her light green eyes he noticed weren't exactly like his. Instead, they had small flecks of gold and blue while his were a pure green with a dark ring around them. They stared at him angrily and with a hint of fear and confusion, a look he didn't understand coming from someone who was obviously an imposter- most likely a Death Eater under the orders of Voldemort to fuck with his mind.

These past few years his 'equal' had just loved to test his limits. So far he hadn't reached a breaking point, but based on the situation he was currently in, Tommy boy was getting pretty damn close.

Harry noticed absentmindedly that his breaths were coming out in sharp pants and his heart was beating as if he was back fighting the Basilisk in his second year again. Normally, he was able to control himself when faced with copies of past loved ones. It was one of Voldie's favorite games to play.

He would have his Death Eaters look like his old friends who had already died. You'd be surprised at what a little bit of hair and skin could do, regardless of whether it was dead or not. He didn't even want to think of how many Hermione's and Ron's he had had to kill to save his own skin.

Each time it didn't get any less horrifying and sick, but he was no longer surprised. Not to mention fearful.

Right now he was feeling both.

The reason being that this was the first time he had ever seen his mother in the flesh, even if it wasn't his real mum- of course Harry, don't you dare forget that. Even if he knew this to be some stupid lacky Death Eater, it didn't make the woman smell any less like the flower she was named for and have a few white spots on her pale skin that were undoubtedly flour.

He even made her look endearingly domestic? How sick can you get Voldemort?

Suddenly, a voice he didn't recognize- but did at the same time 'cause he just knew if Voldemort was going to do this he would make sure he smacked him twice- echoed up to the guest room and the Death Eater's eyes tightened with anger, and still, that confusing fear. It wasn't the fear for one's own safety, but for another's. It was a look he had only seen on one family of Death Eater's- the Malfoy's. And that was just because they all cared for one another deeply, even more than they did for themselves.

So why was this Lily imposter afraid for her partner in crime? It made unbidden thoughts form in his mind; ideas that just couldn't possibly be true, and scenarios that you only read or saw in crazy scientific dramas. But at the same time, it filled him with a deep, overwhelming feeling that he hadn't felt in so very long.

Hope.

And when he looked into those glassy eyes, eyes that were holding back tears that were undoubtedly forming for the man making his way upstairs, he wanted so badly to believe them to be true. He yearned for it.

But he was more jaded and smart than that. He knew this was all most likely a sick game Voldemort's twisted mind had come up with to break Harry, but he couldn't completely dismiss it. If something like this were going to happen to anybody, wouldn't it be Harry Potter? The Danger- Attracting Rule-Bending Luckless Boy-Who-Just-Wouldn't-Die?

Yes, Harry thought to himself while gazing into eyes he so desperately wished to be real, if anyone, it would be me.

Today had been a normal day to begin with.

Just like every day she woke up at 7 A.M. and went to make breakfast. After that she went through her morning routine and headed over to St. Mungos and started her part-time shift she had every summer.

Once her kids headed over to Hogwarts in September she would go back to full-time, but ever since the war started up again...well, she had to spend all the time she could with her kids. So Healer Preason gave her an alternative- works 3 hours for six days a week every summer in the emergency ward.

While the offer had seemed too good to be true at the time, her advisor and boss had stuck with it, so here she was. Luckiest mother in the world. So, at 8:30 she flooed over and by 12 O'clock she was home in time to make lunch.

While she would never be as good a cook as the Weasley matriarch, she wasn't as bad as her James. That man could burn water, and had proceeded to do so the first time Lily asked- Please Lily, you told me to, you lying minx. Let's just say that after that day Lily was made to do all cooking in the house. Lily could still kindly persuade- You mean FORCE you she-demon!, her husband to do all other household chores, so it all evened out.

Anyway, today at around 3:30 her kids and husband had just been sitting on the beach at their summer home that was so Unplottable they didn't even know where it was. All they knew was that all Potter homes were keyed into their floos at home, and that the beach house had amazing wards that even Dumbledore couldn't find an issue with.

It was a perfect place to spend the summers for Lily and James, who were admittedly very powerful magically, and even physically in James's case, but vulnerable while having to take care of their children, who were 12 and 13. However, as James and the kids played in the salty waves, a bright golden light all of a sudden invaded her peripheral. While she at first just assumed it was the sun, something just kept nagging at her, so with one last glance at her beautiful family, she hopped up and went to investigate.

The only thing she noticed was how she continuously jumped a bit when her feet strayed on the hot sand for a bit too long- nothing else of interest caught her eye. Just as she was about to call it quits and go take a nap in the warm sun, she saw it.

A much too familiar shock of black waves.

She quickly ran over, knowing that only a Potter would be allowed here without the wards acting up or someone keyed into the wards. Eventually she came across the boy, and was grateful to see no obvious signs of damage. However, as she turned him over, her eyes met pale skin that rivaled her own, but was scuffed and marked with various cuts and bruises, and lots of dirt and blood?

Many other people would have panicked over the sight of blood-soaked clothing and many other wounds, but Lily was a healer, war veteran, and 40 year old woman to boot. This was nothing. She knew the boy either had to be a Potter, which was impossible because all of them were dead except James and their family, or an extremely powerful wizard, even more so than Dumbledore, to get past the wards so easily. Even then, James would have been warned that they had been failing, so that wasn't possible either.

Lily just assumed that one of her close friends had keyed the kid into the wards. Other than James and herself of course, Sirius, Lupin, Peter, and Dumbledore had the power to do so. So, it wasn't impossible that that had happened.

Lily uttered a quick scourgify and wordlessly levitated the kid and headed up to the house to heal him. She assumed that the boy had apparated in and just hurt himself. You could hurt more than your physical body when apparating. One of those being, what they called, 'splinching your magic.' It didn't happen often, but for those with a core they didn't have full control over, it was definitely a possibility. However, it was rare because only children usually had cores they couldn't completely control.

That's why apparating as accidental magic was not only unheard of, because you had to have some measure of control, but dangerous because a child could easily splinch their magic, and if not properly treated, lose it. Extremely powerful wizards could also have this issue, and she knew for a fact that when Dumbledore first apparated, when he was 12 actually, he splinched his magic. He had been fine, but it made him realize that the Hogwarts curriculum was targeted at helping children with lower capacities of magic, so he had to gain control over it on his own.

Anyway, with thoughts of what could possibly be wrong with this boy running throughout her under active imagination, compared to the truth anyhow, she made her way up to the guest room that Sirius had claimed and laid the boy on his bed. Right after she assessed his body and found his wrist to be fractured and one of his ribs a little cracked, but nothing else seriously wrong with him, she healed both and sent a cleaning charm at his clothes, soon after fire calling one of the nurses at St. Mungos to send her one of their spare hospital beds.

Once it appeared she levitated the kid up again, chucked Sirius's bed into the living room, and laid him upon it. Finally, after she fed the boy some potions and attached an IV (the healers at Mungos called it something different, but Lily and all other muggleborns knew it was just an IV) she heavily sat down and decided to allow herself to just think for a moment.

Who the hell was this guy? A guy that looked like someone she knew with quite a bit of Potter characteristics. Without the grime Lily could see that the boy had the customary Potter hair and jaw. However, something about the rest of his face just didn't seem like a Potter. Not to mention he didn't wear any glasses, which was something both of their kids shared because it was a gene Potter's could never escape.

For some reason, a part of Lily wanted to get closer to this boy. Something about him was achingly familiar, but she just couldn't tell what. So she got up, and slowly crept closer.

She could now see that he had the beginnings of crows feet and lines in between his eyebrows, meaning he wasn't as young as she thought. Maybe mid-twenties at the most.

Just as she was about to lift his eyelid to check his eye color, her wonderful, but horribly timed husband decided to scream, "Lils! Where art thou dear Lily-pad?! Us men and small woman require nourishment. Feed our bellies!"

She couldn't help but roll her eyes at James. Ever since she had forced him to read a few of Shakespeare's works he refused to not speak like someone from that time. Idiot.

So, with one last final sigh and tightening of her lips, she headed downstairs, not noticing that right after the door shut, her newest guest opened his eyes.

This can't be happening.

Lily stared with horror as the man she had kindly decided to let into her home- without warning anyone at all of course because she's so fucking stupid!- pushed her onto the bed without care and mumbled an incarcerous with her own wand. As the man walked slowly and silently to the door, she couldn't help but think back to when she had entered the room before.

After starting up a batch of cookies, because who could spend their last week of summer vacation without the sugary treat?, she had decided to bring up some food for her guest. She knew he would wake up soon, based on her diagnostic tests anyway, and wanted to make sure he was properly nourished before being bombarded with her questions.

She was a good host after all.

As she had stepped into the room, she gently laid the tray on the bedside table and watched as the man brought his hand up into a yawn in an unbearably adorable way and cracked one eye open at a time. Part of her was actually pretty excited to see all the man's facial features, just so she could figure out who he reminded her of, but before she could so much as introduce herself the man had gripped her tightly, stolen her wand, and batted off her attempts at wandless magic as if they were nothing.

While she was panting harshly, the man had seemed unaffected by what was happening, but Lily knew he wasn't. Within those insanely green eyes was fear, hate, and hope? Suddenly, she realized this man most likely knew Legilimency, for who could do such powerful wandless magic without knowing the complicated magic?, so she shut her eyes as tightly as she could. But her captor didn't try to stop her at all. However, she couldn't keep her eyes closed for long.

Just a few second later her delightfully stupid husband decided to call for her. Two pairs of green eyes met for a split second and the man then strode over to the door, hiding behind it with her wand raised slightly.

"Lils! Where'd you go? I need your delightful presence while I scarf down your equally delightful food."

Tears silently slid down her cheeks with every step her beloved James took. However, she had a plan. Just as the door was about to be opened she screamed,

"RUN! Get the k-" and then she was silenced.

But it was enough.

The door slammed open, almost ripping it off it's hinges. James ran in, hazel eyes burning with Gryffindor courage and passion. With her eyes, she tried to tell James the danger was behind the door, but it was no use. The second her husband ran in the room, a stupefy was shot at his back. She sighed sadly as he fell to the ground, knowing that he would have evaded the spell if he hadn't been so worried for her life.

She looked up to meet the face of her captor and was surprised at what she saw. Sadness and disbelief were prominent, same as the underlying anger and hate. But most of all she saw that blinding hope.

Why would her would-be killer feel that at the sight of herself and her husband? However, even while the man tied up her husband and warded the door, she didn't despair. For she knew one thing her enemy didn't.

Help was coming.

It only took five minutes.

The most surprising and weird moments of her life anyhow.

Right after both her and her husband were incapacitated, the man had warded the door with charms she didn't even know and carelessly shot a silent enervate at James. Hazel eyes opened in a flash, his strong auror body automatically struggling to get out of his bonds. Her own dark wand was shoved in her husband's neck harshly immediately.

"Do not struggle or I will be forced to make you stop."

The words weren't said with any emotion, just calm fact. Lily made her eyes beg him to agree, and James reluctantly calmed down. Lily's eyes then strayed to the only clock in the room.

4 minutes to go.

"Who are you?" The man's emotionless, yet wild, eyes turned to face her, those same emotions from before burning within them.

For a few seconds his unnerving eyes just stared at her, and just when she thought he'd never answer, he whispered in his surprisingly soothing voice, "Does it matter?" and all she could think was What the FUCK does that even mean? Of course it matters you psychopath! But she didn't say anything lest she provoke him.

She let her own green eyes, which were welling up with tears, without her permission!, stray to the only clock within the room again.

3 minutes to go.

"How about you give us an actual answer you bloody wanker instead of this cryptic shit. What the hell do you want?! We have money, heirlooms, the works. Just take it and go!" Of course her husband was also aware of the fact that help was on the way, but thank his Gryffindor soul that he pretended to be clueless. He definitely needed to tone down the rage though. Who knew what would set this guy off?

Suddenly, mad chuckles escaped their captor's mouth, and his own delicate-looking hand reached up to hold his chest, which was shaking. They seemed to go on for ages, but the chuckles soon slowly stopped, and the insane grin the man had been sporting slid off his face.

"Money? You-you think- I…" And then he just started laughing again, as if what her husband had said was the most funny thing in the world. James mouthed to her What the fuck Lily? but she didn't respond. All she had eyes for was the clock.

1 minute.

The laughter stopped even more abruptly this time, ending with a deep sigh. His eyes shined with madness and disbelief.

"Either you two are the most stupid Death Eaters I've ever encountered, or you're the best. Usually his games aren't this intricate or last this long, mostly just because of how impatient the bastard is, which I'm sure you're both intimately familiar with, but really?"

At this point the man was staring at the ceiling, smiling all the while. "Do you think I'm that much of an idiot you crazy arsehole? Takes more than this to break me Tommy boy! I'm not going to play along!"

Seconds later he was right up in their faces, now sporting a grin that couldn't be called anything but malicious. Hatred and just absolute crazy shining in eyes that looked much too familiar to be comfortable with her all the while.

"I know exactly what's going on, and don't think I'm afraid to kill the both of you just because of the faces you're wearing. You can't fool me! Not anymore, not again! Granted, this is new, but-"

Time's up bitch.

And the room was filled with white smoke and spells of red, yellow, and purple.