DISLAIMER: That part of this world and those characters you've seen before belong to their Creator: JKR. The rest is mine - although I cannot quit my day job as I make no $$$ from this…
A/N: A reviewer noted Harry talks more mature than his age. I admit that. I try to keep his seven-ish, but it's hard since I am hardly that age. So I came up with a cheat. This Harry is loosely based upon a seven year old I knew years ago. That boy had already read the Lord of the Rings and I can assure you spoke as it he were a young adult and not a mere seven year old. His age only showed when he was tired or when the conversation moved onto a book or topic he was not familiar with. (He went on to earn a Ph.D. by age 21).
So what happened in the original time line? Harry gave up trying and regressed.
For the reviews who wish certain evil things to happen to Harry's tormentors, sorry. The suggestions would force me to up the rating to "M" at least. But fate is a funny thing… I hope you appreciate my take on that bit in the end.
We are now going to slowly depart from Canon. (As if we haven't.) The one thing as a fanfic author I like is that JKR's work was for all intents and purposes Harry's POV. If Harry had not heard it, known it or experienced it, neither did we. Oh so much fertile ground for manipulation! And in this fic, I will plow as much of the barren field as I can…
(Oh, here's a hint. Dumbles is Bumbles for now, but we are several chapters away from that…)
To another reviewer about when Primary School let's out in Britain… tried to find out. Not a clue. But here, Harry attended a free school and Hermione did not so it is possible - even though the curriculum must meet a national standard - that they ended on different dates. Here, for story purposes, Hermione finishes in early June while Harry finishes in Hospital as he has nothing to do otherwise…
CHAPTER SIX: PUZZLES
SATURNDAY, MAY 14, 1988 - ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, LONDON, U.K.
The Avatar observed as Harry was welcomed into his new family. In minutes, the lonely boy had been the victim of more affection than he had ever remembered. He seemed both pleased and uncomfortable with it all. The Avatar was not surprised at this. In another timeline, Harry needed years before he could feel even slightly comfortable with being hugged and kissed. He had put up with it, but it was years before he became used to it and even then, deep down it still bothered him. This Harry seemed to relax fairly quickly.
He felt his initial insight into this new Harry may prove correct. The Avatar searched his own memories and soon realized for certain that the "vacation" that had led to the darkest time in the boy's life in the other timeline was a turning point that now seemed to have been avoided. He was supposed to advance a grade ahead of his peers. Instead, he was held back with his cousin, who had barely managed to advance. The day he had been found by the Grangers may have been a key event day, one which would avoid damage that had occurred in the other timeline. Maybe this Harry would not suffer the social problems the other Harry had. That would be a good thing, because the social problems the other Harry had developed in the coming years made him cannon fodder in the Old Man's plans and would lead to the end of the world.
The Avatar watched as this Harry and Hermione talked eagerly of books and music. Hermione, it seems, had been taking violin lessons and they talked about music they might one day play together. The whole time, they never let go of each other's hand. They were two children starved for friendship and they were eating it up. The parents had left telling the children that they were going shopping. They trusted their daughter not to wander off and they seemed to trust Harry as well. The Avatar watched as the hospital staff served them both a lunch - in Harry's case he was ordered to stuff himself. With the lunch over, they were now talking about school, each excited that they might be classmates in the same school.
The Avatar decided to make an appearance, although he was almost certain only Harry would be able to see him. He positioned himself so that Harry would see him but Hermione would not then began to appear from the nothingness. He was amused at Harry's reaction. Harry's eyes went wide and mouth dropped open. Apparently, Hermione saw this and turned to look.
Her eyes narrowed and she seemed to position herself as if to protect Harry. "Who are you?" she snapped.
"What are you?" Harry added in shock. "He just appeared out of nowhere."
The Avatar was surprised Hermione could see him, but it was a welcome development. He smiled. "I can assure you, Hermione, I am not one of Harry's vile relatives. Harry and I first met last Saturday, not long before you made his acquaintance."
Hermione looked at Harry who nodded. "How do you know my name?" she asked.
"Ah questions. Harry had a fair few last night when I visited and I promised him I would begin to answer them, but also warned him, the answers will take time. Suffices to say, Hermione, I know a lot about you, just as I know a lot about Harry.
"You are Hermione Jane Granger, born September 19th, 1979 in London to Robert and Rose Granger, a pair of dentists. You live in Loughton Essex and I believe you attend St. Michaels School not two blocks from this hospital, right?"
Hermione looked stunned.
"And your friend here is Harry James Potter, born July 31st, 1980 in Godrics Hollow, Devonshire to James Tiberius Potter and Lily Marie (Evans) Potter. His parents were murdered on October 31st, 1981..."
"Murdered?" Harry asked.
"Murdered. I can assure you they were not what your Aunt says they were. Anyway, Harry was sent to live with his mother's sister, Petunia who was married to a brutal man named Vernon Dursley. He lived at Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. It was not a pleasant life."
"No," Harry said frowning, "it was not."
The Avatar laughed at a thought. "I bet the two of you did not know you both have the first two initials? H.J.? I had always thought it would have been amusing if you two had married. Same initials, see? H.J.P. Could have monogrammed everything and only the two of you would truly know whether the H.J. stood for Harry, Hermione or both. Lovely prank it would have been."
"Married," Hermione squeaked. "What are you talking about? Why are you talking about us in the past? What's with the riddles?"
"Not riddles," the Avatar said. "Puzzles. A riddle has all the information needed to answer it contained within the riddle itself. A puzzle is missing information. A riddle does not encourage a person to learn, rather it tests how clever they are. A puzzle encourages questions which leads to learning. Much more interesting things, puzzles."
"What are you on about?" Harry asked.
"Today I shall answer two of your questions. In so doing, I'll probably answer many more. Those two questions are what am I and who am I. We will begin with the what. Hermione, may I shake your hand?"
Hermione nodded cautiously. The Old Man walked up and extended his hand. Hermione reached out for it and her hand simply passed through his as if it was not there. She gasped.
"Are you a ghost?" she asked.
The Old Man laughed. "No Hermione, I most certainly am not a ghost. A ghost is the disembodied spirit or essence of a person who has passed away that, for reasons known only to it, has not chosen to move on from this world and just lingers. To be a ghost, I must be both a spirit and I must have both lived and died. I certainly exist. But I am no spirit and I have never had a physical body. What you see is not matter, but energy. I am perhaps unique. The best word to describe what I am is an Avatar."
"What's that?" Hermione asked.
"Indeed," the Old Man chuckled. "The word has two meanings, both of which are applicable. The word Avatar comes from the ancient language of Sanskrit. It refers to a spirit being from a higher plane of existence sent to this plane to perform a specific task. In western mythos, the most analogous being is an angel, or more specifically a guardian angel.
"An Avatar also refers to the digital representation of a player in a computer game. It is the extension of a human into the digital world and is under the control of the player.
"To at least some extent, I am both and neither. I was created by a man and what you see before you is that man. I have all of his memories, thoughts and learning. I have his feelings and, I dare say, probably some of his more annoying personality quirks. He sent me here because he needs to do something and cannot do it himself. He is both me and not me. I knew him as my Creator. He called himself the Curator. I am his Avatar, yet I am me at the same time. I have been sent here because of Harry."
"What? Me? Why?" Harry asked.
"We'll get there, don't you worry Harry. Don't tell me you read the last chapter of a book to see how it ends before you get there."
"I - I don't."
"All in good time. Now. Where was I?"
"You're here because of Harry," Hermione said.
The old man chuckled. "You always did pay attention in class."
"Again with the past!"
"Getting there," the Old Man grinned. "As you could tell earlier when you could not touch me, I cannot interact with this world in the physical sense. As such I must act through another. I was designed so that only a few people could ever see or hear me. The critical one was my Creator."
The Old Man stopped talking and let the two think about that for a while. Both seemed to begin to understand but not believe what he was implying. Finally Hermione spoke.
"But - but that means…" she began.
The two children watched as the old man began to transform before their very eyes. He seemed to get younger by the second. Old, then middle aged, then a young man, a teenager and finally, a boy. A seven year old boy who was the spitting image of Harry.
After a long stunned silence, Harry spoke. "I created you? That's can't be!"
"Right now, you are correct," the new boy said. "But one hundred and sixty-one years from now and after almost one hundred years of trying? Yes Harry. I am you - or at least one possible you."
"A different plane of existence," Hermione said, "sent to perform a task. You're from the future! But that's impossible!"
"I am indeed from A future," the Old Man said. "My being here is proof that it's not impossible. Nothing is impossible, merely improbable. In a few years, scientists studying quantum theory will show that to be the case, assuming they have not done so already. I am one form of Harry Potter. Until last Saturday, he and I were identical. I experienced everything he had up to that date. I experienced every beating, every humiliation, every deprivation he had suffered at the hands of the Dursleys. But, last Saturday, he became a different Harry Potter."
"How can this be possible?" Hermione said.
"I don't believe you," Harry added.
The Old Man then began to recount all of Harry's memories. Hermione sat there in shock watching Harry as his expressions confirmed every beating, every humiliation. The fact he had not even known his real name until he went to school for the first time brought her to tears. Harry was soon in tears as well. The Old Man described everything, right up until the point where he met Harry at the library. He stopped talking and allowed the children to recover.
"Until last Saturday Harry," the Old Man said, "I was you and you were me. You see that now, don't you?"
Harry nodded. He never told anyone what the Old Man had said and it was all true. "Wh-what happened?"
"In my timeline, Harry, I went to the library to continue reading the Fellowship of the Ring. Unlike you, no old man came up to me and engaged me in conversation. I finished my chapter, noted it on my notepad for later and left. I made it back to Privet Drive and collapsed just inside the door. I came to about a week later. What food there was in the house had spoiled and I had no money. I did the only thing I could think of. I went to Mrs. Figg. She fed me and a friend of hers fixed me up. I then returned to the Dursleys.
"I would meet my best friend Hermione one day. We seemed destined to meet. But it would not be now. My Hermione and I met in the fall of 1991. When I saw that it was Hermione and her parents that saved you the other day, I wondered whether that was a coincidence. I don't believe in destiny and similar nonsense, but now? Maybe you two were destined to meet and become friends.
"I was sent here to change the future. Not just my future or Hermione's, although I do hope for your sakes that is true. No. If it was only your lives, I would not have bothered. But there's far more at stake and you, Harry, are the Keystone. You do not create the hell the world becomes, but had you been prepared, you are the only one who can prevent it. That is why I am here. I am here to help you save the human race from its own extinction."
"How am I supposed to do that?" Harry asked in shock.
"Wait a minute," Hermione said, "you're here to change history?"
"Hope so," the Old Man said.
"But that's wrong! That's evil! That's…"
"I would agree with you, Hermione. Done for selfish reasons you are right. Moreover - Harry? You remember our conversation about Chaos Theory?"
"You can't know what might happen," Harry said.
"Indeed," the Old Man replied. "Any change in the timeline cannot be predicted. I have already changed it. You and Hermione were not to meet for another three years. Your abuse would not be noticed, Harry. Now it is and you will never live with the Dursleys again. I was sent back to prevent a disaster of such monumental proportions. This is far beyond making my former life better, or Hermione's. Her life in my timeline, well… It's probably better now, Hermione.
"Anyway, were we talking about just the two of you, I would never have come back. For the whole human race, however, that's different. I came back to save humanity. I hope in so doing I will make your new lives far better than they were in my timeline. And no, Harry, you are not expected to do anything for some time. Nor you, Hermione."
"Still," Hermione protested, "you might make things worse. We might make things worse."
"How can it possibly get any worse," the Old man complained. "In about eighty years, what's left of the human race will be wiped out in the second nuclear war. Fifty-eight years from now, most everyone I know dies in the first nuclear war. There is no worse case scenario as the worst case is precisely what will happen if events unfold as they did in my timeline. Anything less than the extermination of mankind is an improvement. Hopefully, the changes will prevent even the less bloody of the wars."
"Given the choice, Hermione," Harry said, "maybe it is worth trying."
"How can we be sure of this, Harry? It's so - weird."
"And so is Sensei," Harry began.
"Who?"
"That's what future me told me to call him," Harry said. "It means 'teacher.'"
"And you may call me that too, Hermione," Sensei said. "My primary task was to teach you and Harry what you need to know so that when the time is right you will not make the mistakes my Hermione and I made. Those mistakes were based upon lack of information, not lack of skill, desire, planning or effort. It is the information gap - and other things - that I have been sent to help you with."
"So what did you and your Hermione do wrong?" Hermione asked.
"We will get to that. I regret I cannot teach you everything in one day. The plan called for years of instruction before the first critical juncture was reached. Now, it seems, we have even more years and more opportunities to avoid that juncture altogether."
"More years?"
Sensei nodded. "The - er - device that allowed me to come to Harry from my future self had - er - limitations. We could ensure it was accurate to within meters of a specific location in the past, or actuate to within minutes of a specific time in the past, but not both. The system was subject to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal - a theory that states you can mathematically determine where something is or what it is doing, but you cannot do both. We decided that temporal accuracy was not as important as geographic accuracy. Our target time of arrival was July 1st, 1995 - over seven years from now. We deliberately erred on the side of arriving before that date rather than after."
"Why that date?" Hermione asked.
"I regret, that lesson is for another day, Hermione," Sensei replied. "You will be told, however."
Hermione pouted.
"I know you hate not knowing, Hermione," Sensei said. "But there really is a lot of material the two of you will need to learn. As I said, the information alone may take years to teach. And, as I will tell you later, I am here to teach more than just information. I will be teaching you skills you will need in the years to come. Even if the timeline changes, these skills will be useful to you in any event. These skills also will take years to learn and master. I only ask a few things from both of you."
"What things?" Harry asked.
"First and foremost, I ask for your patience and for you to try as hard as you can."
They nodded.
"Second, you must trust each other. You must promise never to have a secret from the other. Do not be afraid of what the other might think if you have something you need or want to tell them. I know you two will always be the best of friends and that nothing will ever change that. So trust each other.
"Third, everything I am teaching you is a secret. You cannot tell anyone else about any of it. Some they may figure out on their own, but you may not reveal how you know the things I teach you. There may come a day when Harry trusts someone else enough that they can see me. When that day comes, you can decide what to tell them and what not to. But, you can only tell people who can see me.
"Fourth, I may ask you to do some things that don't make a lot of sense. I will try to explain. If for some reason I cannot, I want you to trust me. I am not going to ask you to do anything dangerous - at least not until I am sure you are ready and will be safe.
"Can you agree to this?"
"Yes Sensei," the two children said in unison.
"Good. I have got one more thing to tell you before I leave you for today. I will see you again tomorrow and we'll cover more ground. Between now and then, I will leave you with a little homework…"
The two children actually smiled. "Nothing too fancy. I just want you two to think about what I've told you today. You may talk to each other about it. Tomorrow, you may ask questions about it. To the extent that I missed something I should have told you today, I will make up for my glaring omissions tomorrow.
"Finally, I want you to know that I cannot see the true future ahead - only the signs that the fate suffered in my timeline remains probable. That being said, I have given much thought as to why I returned at the time that I did. At first, I thought it was random chance. Now I am not so sure."
Sensei remained silent for a moment.
"As I told you earlier, Harry and I lived the same life right up until the point Harry met me in the library last Saturday. Harry?"
"Yes Sensei?"
"Thursday, before you were injured, you had a meeting with your teacher Ms. Johnson, right?"
"Yes. She said I could probably skip third form altogether and move right on to fourth."
Sensei nodded. "I had the same talk with her in my time. What else did she tell you?"
"That I am way ahead in reading and writing but will probably have to study math over the summer - possibly in summer school. She said I was the brightest in my class and she felt keeping me with my class was not in my best interests. I'd probably become bored, she said, and might lose interest in my studies."
Sensei nodded. "Me too. Except in my case, as you know, I did not get to live with Hermione's family. I was stuck with the Dursleys who were not about to let me advance faster than their thickheaded son. They also were furious when they learned I was at the top of my class and Dudley was at the bottom. They made it clear to me that it was unacceptable.
"Like you, I loved reading. I loved learning new things. I also loved being the best in my class. The Dursleys took away my reading and made it clear I had to do worse than Dudley. As a result, I lost interest in learning. It was not until after I met my Hermione when that began to change, but it took time. Too much time, really. I never learned the critical reasoning skills I would need until it was too late. Had I learned those skills - and I would have if I had not lost my interest in learning - well, I probably would not be here. I will tell you why later.
"When your parents return, Hermione, I want you and Harry to try and convince them that Harry should skip third form. Would you like to do that, Harry?"
"Yes Sensei, very much," Harry said with a smile.
"You know you'll probably have to finish your course work for this year."
"I don't mind. Seems I'm stuck here and would like something to do while I lie around waiting for Hermione and to get better."
"And you may have to take summer school for the math."
"I don't mind. My summers were never all that fun before anyway."
"Will you help him, Hermione?"
"I'd love to, Sensei!"
"Good. So now, remember your 'homework.' Think about what we've discussed and, more importantly, I want you to focus on trying to explain your special gifts. Okay?"
"We will," Hermione said as Harry nodded.
"See you sometime tomorrow," Sensei said as he faded into nothingness.
"You think Sensei is somehow connected to whatever it is that our special gifts are?" Harry asked.
"I think that's a logical conclusion," Hermione said. "So what are your thoughts?"
A/N: The term "Avatar" in our age - as in computer gaming - was first used around 1985.