The Doorway
Chapter 7: Unusual Utopia
Summary: Eighteen years to the day after Sirius fell through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries, Harry steps in after him. This story was inspired by the beginning of 'A Black Comedy' by nonjon and 'Making Faces' by Thanatos. Complete Cannon excluding the epilogue, AU and OOC … obviously.
Disclaimer: I own nothing; I just wanna play with 'em. I make no monetary gain from this romp through Rowling's World.
Harry tightened his coils around his godfathers arm, shaking him free of his shock. Sirius turned and headed for the area he recalled that housed the Department of Magical Maintenance, and the more probable locations to hide. Finally locating an obviously disused broom cupboard at the end of a long hall of other, identical, broom cupboards, Sirius doffed the invisibility cloak and Harry returned to his natural form.
"What the bloody hell is this place?" Harry exclaimed after hastily casting a Muffliato at the cupboard door.
"Your guess is as good as mine, Pup." Sirius answered, "Tom Riddle is Minister?! For the past twenty years?! I don't get it. Did he never become Voldemort?"
Harry nodded thoughtfully, "That makes sense. He's using his birth name; even the teenage memory from the diary hated his name and had already been going by Voldemort."
"So, what do we do?" Sirius asked, "We need to find out more about this world."
Harry nodded, "There's three ways we can do that without exposing ourselves." He had to pause as Sirius giggled like a schoolboy, "We can sneak into the Ministry Archives; no telling what kind of security they have in this world, it's always been a ghost town in ours. We can try Flourish and Blotts; but there's no guarantee this one's got back dated Prophets with the Ministry being so open. Or, we can go to Hogwarts and look through their library; though with Tom Riddle as Minister who knows what changes have happened to the castle. That goes for the rest of the wizarding world, too."
Sirius nodded, "I figure we can at least explore the Ministry and see the security of the Archive as we're here already."
Harry nodded in return and transformed back into his reptilian form, before slithering up Sirius' arm to rest his coils around the man's shoulders.
"Hey, you need a Marauder name now!" Sirius exclaimed as he adjusted the cloak over Harry's form, "How about … Blackbite? On account of your dark mouth?"
If Harry could have smiled he would have, at any rate he gave Padfoot's shoulders a solid squeeze in affirmation.
Sirius chuckled and nodded before dispelling Harry's charm on the door and sneaking out towards the Ministry Archives.
*~ {PoE} ~*
Hogwarts Professor Adopts Young Wizard Orphan
In a move that has had many in the Ministry scratching their heads Albus Dumbledore, Transfiguration Professor and Deputy Headmaster, has officially adopted five year old Tom Riddle, an orphan from the town of Little Hangleton. Young mister Riddle, it has been discovered, is one of the last heirs of the Slytherin line through his mothers' side. The Heiress died 31 December, 1926 in the birthing of her son and his father, a Muggle man of some stature in his hometown, had finally succumbed to an insidious muggle disease that had plagued him for all the years of young Tom Jr.'s life. According to the locals, Tom's mother, Merope Gaunt, had been rescued from her abusive father and brother by her eventual husband, Tom Riddle Sr., when she was a teen girl. He took her into his house and cared for her for several years before the two were wed in a small ceremony. It is unknown whether he ever knew of her magical origins or that his son too, was magical.
How Dumbledore heard of the youngster is another curiosity. We at the Prophet can now reliably inform you that the lad had let out such a burst of accidental magic at the death of his father that the witch monitoring the sensors at the ministry, Ms. Anabelle Kentworthy, screamed when they all went off at once. Albus Dumbledore, there for his annual examination of the records for the Hogwarts acceptance letters, rushed to Ms. Kentworthy's aid. Upon discovering the cause of her distress, he then departed to attend to the child, leaving Anabelle with a strong cup of tea and an equally strong cheering charm. Tom Riddle Jr. was found by his fathers' freshly filled grave, in the midst of one of the most powerful Muggle repelling wards ever conjured. When questioned by the Professor Mr. Riddle told him that the mourners 'wouldn't leave him alone' and that he 'just wanted them to go away'.
With such power already available to the boy and a wizard such as Albus Dumbledore to raise him, we at the Daily Prophet are expecting great things from Tom Riddle.
Harry put the paper down and sat back; stretching his tired muscles and hearing the bones in his spine pop. He glanced around for Sirius, finally spotting him half hidden by a file cabinet and elbows deep in one of its drawers. The Ministry Archives were as desolate as they were in their own world and they had spent the past several hours combing through records. They had already found Tom's Hogwarts transcripts and work records from after Hogwarts. The man was a straight O student with Honours, and an exemplary employee of the Department of Magical Cooperation of all places. He'd risen in the ranks of his department steadily before making his bid for Minister in 1957 when he was 30 years old, where he was nearly unopposed.
It appeared that this singular act of his father rescuing his mother, caring for her, had completely changed the entire wizarding world for the better. There was little to no discrimination, be it First-Gen's (as the Muggle Borns were now called), Beings (sentient non-humans such as Veela, Merfolk, Goblins, Centaurs, House Elves, and the like), Afflicted (Once human and changed; Werewolves and Vampires, as well as trapped Animagi) or Magicals (sub-sentient creatures like Dragons, Unicorns, Pixies, and most of the 'beasts' in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a book that apparently did not exist here).
There were no secrets in the Ministry; Tom had enacted an 'Open Door' policy from day one in Office. The Department of Mysteries was renamed and all their experiments were brought to light. The newly christened Department of Research and Development had already cured Dragon Pox and found a way to boost the magical cores of Squibs, making them nominal magic users at best, but still magic users. Due to improved relations with Beings, there were no enslaved House Elves, each elf was paid a salary and anyone abusing an elf was sent to Azkaban, where there were no Dementors. The entire race of minor Demons had been banished back to the chaos realm they'd been summoned from eons ago. Each new thing Harry and Sirius discovered was showing this world as a budding Utopia, and they were both waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Woah, Pup!" Sirius called, "Listen to this,"
Hogwarts to Host its First Afflicted
Minister Riddle and his Father Headmaster Dumbledore have now enabled Afflicted to attend Hogwarts, erecting Covens and Dens to aid the individual Afflicted. The Vampires will have classes during the night hours taught by a staff of Vampire Professors, while the Werewolves will have specially built Dens for their monthly change. Those Afflicted who are trapped Animagi have no need of specialty housing as they can no longer attend schooling of any kind. They are still, of course, welcome to the Flamel Farm for the remainder of their lives, should they choose/need to go. Any Afflicted older than 11 years may contact Professor Dumbledore to set up a time to apply to Hogwarts. Those younger than 11 must wait for their acceptance letter like everyone else.
Sirius flipped the paper back over to read the date. "This was in 1962, ten years before James, Remus, and I got to Hogwarts; Remus would have grown up accepted. Hell with this kind of attitude towards werewolves it's possible he was never bitten; he was two when this was enacted and he wasn't bitten until he was five. Wow, if Remus never became Moony, then James and I would have never become Animagi to help him. We may not even have been friends. There are so many things that could be so totally different now. Your parents may never have gotten together, hell my parents may have never gotten together."
Harry scrubbed his face tiredly, he didn't know whether to agree with Sirius or not. True, things could be drastically different, but they also could not be, "Let's look for the Hogwarts attendance lists for the years you were at school, and mine too. See what we can find there."
Sirius nodded and flicked his wand, sending all the papers he'd gone through neatly back into their drawer before moving to a different cabinet and pulling it open. Harry sent his own stack of newspapers back to their file boxes and joined his godfather, curious as to what they might find of the people they were in this world, or if they had ever existed here at all.
*~ {PoE} ~*
Well, Harry thought sardonically as he once again coiled around Sirius' shoulders, the differences in this world certainly fell into the 'drastically' category. James Potter had never been born, however Jamie Potter had attended Hogwarts alongside Lily Evans and her older sister Petunia, who apparently was one of the squibs that benefited from Core Boosting. As Sirius had guessed, Remus had never been bitten and had actually been a Ravenclaw. A goodly portion of Sirius' entire family on the Black side had been shipped to Azkaban for their practice of hanging deceased House Elf heads on their wall. As such his parents never married. There was no Harry Potter or Sirius Black in this universe.
Because Petunia attended Hogwarts she and Lily never had their falling out, and Petunia hadn't married Vernon Dursley. In this world there was no Dudley either. Petunia had married a classmate named Davey Cudgeon, a name that rang a bell with Sirius. He had been the boy that tried to get too close to the Whomping Willow and nearly lost an eye. Apparently the Willow wasn't there either. Petunia and Davey had one child, a boy, whom they'd named Clayton.
Lily had stayed friends with Severus Snape, who had also benefited from the zero policy on discrimination with the incarceration of his abusive father, and the two were eventually wed. They'd had two children themselves; Sebastian and Heather Snape. The elder boy's name had continued his fathers' alliteration with his name and the younger girl had been named after a flower following her mother.
In an interesting twist, Jamie Potter and Remus Lupin had married. Having themselves three children; twin girls and an older brother. The boy was Romulus and the girls were Jessica and Jennifer. The Potter line was continued through Jamie's younger brother, Justin and his two boys, Justin Jr. and Jason.
The Weasley family was peppered with some familiar some unfamiliar names. There was no Neville Longbottom though there was a Nadine born the same day. Hermione Granger and Dean Thomas were still there as were the Patel twins but there was no Lavender Brown. Fenrir Greyback had a son named Finick with a witch named Dortheya.
So many changes, not all stemming from that one act of good will by Tom Riddle Sr. but enough that the ripples were clearly visible to the two dimension hoppers. They were at a loss now. Should they put down roots and try to live here, or hop back through the Doorway to a new world, knowing it could be much, much worse than this one.
A/N: My most profound apologies for the lateness of this chapter. I can only say that the muse disserted me. I had a period of apathy towards writing and didn't make progress on any story, even my original work. Hopefully this chapter makes up for the previous dearth of new content and will spur me on to writing additional chapters, not just for this story, but for the other two as well. Though Hogwarts Helps needs a bit of a revamp. Also, what do you think our Hoppers should do, stay in this Unusual Utopia, or move on to the wild unknown?