Disclaimer: Any canon dialogue credited to JK Rowling.

A Different World, Part II

The common room was nearly empty, but for the first time in almost three years, at least part of Hogwarts felt like a home to Harry, not a penitentiary in which he was trapped until the day graduation would have allowed him a bitter escape to yet another prison, the Phoenix, where he would be welcomed with open arms, glittering titles and plenty of false pretences.

Pansy was sitting alongside him staring thoughtfully into the lit fireplace. They hadn't spoken for the better part of the hour, not since Malfoy had left to look for Granger, and Pansy had twirled back toward Harry looking as radiant as he had ever seen her, flung her arms around him, and fiercely whispered, "Thank you."

That alone had made going along with this otherwise completely lunatic caper worth it, even if he still didn't trust Granger — if that really was who she was — as far as he could throw her.

Pansy's presence alone was calming, the feeling of her breaths ebbing and flowing calmly against him soothing, her fingers interlaced with his. In the unexpected insanity of the four days it had been since they had reunited, they'd hardly had time to be alone with each other, not with Granger's determination to see her plan through to the end and Pansy's insistence that he participate.

Harry savoured her and the silence while it lasted, because he knew it wouldn't:

First, the overenthusiastic, know-it-all devil child who was apparently the offspring of Bellatrix Black-Lestrange had somehow gotten hold of their password again, even though he'd made a point of changing it yesterday, and had proceeded to invade the common room at will. Now, Malfoy of all people would be permanently sharing the increasingly shrinking quarters as well — and bunking in Harry's room rather than Granger's, Harry had insisted.

He wasn't especially looking forward to Malfoy nosing around, but he couldn't say he'd rather see the particularly unlucky conservative back with Weasley, either. Were it any other person, Harry frankly wouldn't have cared less about what happened to him. But he knew how much Pansy did, which meant Harry had to care more than he wanted to.

"He didn't seem… quite the same, didn't he?" Pansy suddenly said quietly.

Harry glanced down at her face; her eyes were worried. "He's been through a lot, Liv."

She nodded. "I know, and that's why — well — do you think he'll be alright? I mean, I know how much just being with My…" She trailed off, biting her lip, and Harry wanted to kill My Granger, wherever she was, before Pansy blinked rapidly and continued, "I can't even begin to fathom the horrible things they did to him. Did you see those - those awful scars on his face?" Her chin wobbled tremulously. "And he can't even - he can't even walk properly anymore…"

Harry sighed and brushed back some of her hair reassuringly, then rested his chin on the top of her head. "As much as I loathe to say it, if anyone can get through all of that, it's Malfoy, obnoxiously good-natured prat that he is."

She smiled weakly and twisted around to look up at him, the sadness in her eyes turning to faint mischief. "Do I hear fondness in that statement, Harry Evans? Does this mean my two best boys will finally become the best of friends? After all, you two'll be sharing a room now. Sounds like plenty of time for bonding, if you ask me."

Before he could stop it, disgusted disbelief exploded across his face at the very idea, causing her to giggle. "Merlin, Harry, you're still such a box! Draco's one of the best friends anyone could ever ask for! Why on earth wouldn't you want to be friends with him?"

"I think the better question is, why on earth would I? There are some who find the blind Malfoy trust and idealism sickening, you know. It'll get him into trouble - Oh wait. It already has."

She shook her head, still smiling. "Deny it all you want. You like my idealism."

He snorted. "Believe me, you and Malfoy are two entirely different species—"

"Pansy! Harry! Is he here? Is Draco here yet?"

A mangy-haired blur barrelled into the common room and threw herself on Pansy in what could have either been a hug or a chokehold. When she looked toward him to Merlin forbid do the same, Harry scowled and gave her a deadly expression that was enough to ward her off.

His eyes flicked toward the clock.

"Sneaking around after hours in front of the Head Boy, are you? Unwise, Longbottom. I should deduct house points."

Pansy nudged him but looked unconcerned; he knew she knew he wouldn't go through with the threat while she was with him. "Harry, she's been waiting to see Draco all day."

"Well, Malfoy's otherwise occupied, isn't he? Speaking of which…" Harry twisted around on the couch and peered suspiciously up at the Head Girl's closed bedroom door. "He's been gone a bloody long time. What in the blazes are they doing up there, sha—"

"Harry!" Pansy elbowed him hard enough that it hurt, then looked back at the Longbottom-Black hybrid's anxious expression. "He's here, sweetheart. He's alright. He's talking to Hermione now, but I'm sure he'll be down soon. Why don't you wait here with us until then?"

Harry spluttered and looked at Pansy in disbelief. But she gave him a doe-eyed, pleading expression with which he couldn't argue, though he suppressed a groan when he felt her body pull away from him to make space for the Peia girl.

In between them.

Blasted imp.

He tried to tune her out as she and Pansy began to converse, her high-pitched chatter much more animated than Pansy's reserved voice.

Instead, he focused on the mystery that My Granger - Hermione Granger? - had suddenly become. Just because she was clearly no longer My Granger and knew about the Marauders' Map didn't make her from another universe — one with the exact same people in it as this one, only with different personalities, no less.

He almost held back a snort at the thought.

No, what it made her was much more likely to have been from this world, working through Lupin or even Sirius Black for that information, perhaps, though what kind of idiotic Sovereignty agent would have concocted such an utterly ludicrous cover story, he didn't know.

That's what didn't add up.

She was no idiot, not with her very demonstrative magical competency and extremely adept acting skills that had allowed her to snatch Draco Malfoy and still manage to emerge socially victorious — a nearly impossible feat, since making the convicted conservative's life a living hell had become a popular pastime amongst the older student body.

No, Harry was concerned that whoever was now shoved in My Granger's body had a mental capacity that rivalled his mother's. And with her obvious ability to trick and lie and charm, that was a very disturbing problem.

He knew all too well the treachery of which someone like her was capable.

But if she was a spy, what was her endgame? Why hadn't she turned him in to the Sovereignty yet, unless this new version of My had even bigger blackmail plans than My herself had?

And why go through such a charade to obtain Malfoy? Surely the House-Wizard, now that he like all the others had been irreversibly rendered magically impotent, couldn't have been important anymore to either the Sovereignty or any scattered conservatives who might have remained undetected, not even when the information Lucius Malfoy knew came to light.

"Harry? Harry, what about you?" Suddenly, the urchin child was beaming up at him. "Harry?"

Harry would have much rather Avada'd himself than be dragged into conversation with her. He glanced irately at Pansy, who was smiling at him in amusement, before he looked back at Peia. "What about me?" he grunted.

"Do you think things are going to change now that Hermione's here, too?" she asked brightly.

That question caught him off guard, and his mouth opened in surprise before a hard expression settled across his face. "Not bloody lik—"

"Draco!"

Before he could finish responding, Peia jumped off the couch and ran off behind them toward the Head Girl dorm's entrance.

Harry blinked. "Good to know I don't matter," he muttered.

Pansy twisted slightly to watch the irksome terror go forth and leech onto someone else, thank Merlin, before turning back to him. "I thought you didn't care," she said quietly, her smile teasing.

He scowled instantly. "I don't."

He followed her gaze to see Peia hugging the bedraggled Malfoy halfway up the stairs; Malfoy had sat down on one of the steps, even, probably because she'd knocked him over. Perhaps Harry was just used to seeing Malfoy in captivity, but he thought the Slytherin actually looked considerably more put together now than he ever had in all the times Harry had encountered him in the two years following the Final Suppression.

After a few minutes, they came down the stairs, Peia clinging to Malfoy's hand. Pansy stood up and stepped around the couch to meet them, though Harry didn't bother to move.

"Is everything alright up there? Did something… happen?" Pansy asked him quietly, as always concerned about others' well being before her own.

Malfoy smiled at her tiredly, his gaze warm, and hesitated before briefly touching her shoulder in a physical gesture of reassurance. After a period of jealously that lasted for much of fourth year, Harry had learned that it was just what Malfoy did around almost everyone, and he didn't bristle at it anymore. "Everything's fine, Pans. Just needed to hash out a few things."

But then Malfoy's pale eyes flicked toward Harry, and the uncharacteristically angry expression that suddenly flared to life in them did cause Harry to bristle and stand abruptly.

"Evans. We need to talk." Malfoy's expression hardened further. "Preferably in private."

Harry could have rolled his eyes. Was Granger really so pathetic that she had gone crying to Malfoy that Harry was still suspicious of her? And was Malfoy really so pathetic that he'd fallen for it so quickly?

"If you have something to say to me, here's as good a place as any," he said, crossing his arms.

Pansy was looking worriedly between them. "Draco, what's—"

Malfoy glanced at her and Peia for a moment, did the hand-on-Pansy's-arm thing again, and then focused back on Harry. Harry met his even gaze with some level of amusement that he didn't even bother to conceal.

This should be entertaining, to say the very least.

He had to say, he didn't expect Malfoy to have it in him to step right up to Harry so they were eye to eye - not so soon after the wraith-like, hobbling man had been nothing more than a punching bag for most of the others in Harry's social circle. Nor did he expect the considerable amount of ferocity that was quite evident in Malfoy's voice when he said quietly, "You need to back off her, Evans."

Harry's eyebrows flew up. "Really? You're threatening me when you don't even have a wand?"

In an ironic twist, Malfoy was the only one between them who didn't appear amused. "Not threatening, Evans. Telling. Give her a chance, or you're going to lose the most important ally any of us might ever have."

Harry snorted. "You mean you actually believe that rubbish?"

Malfoy's arm jerked backward, and for a second, Harry actually thought he was going to try to punch him. His own reaction was automatic, his wand out in a heartbeat.

"Draco!" Pansy exclaimed, but Malfoy wrestled his fisted hand back to his side, his eyes flashing.

"That rubbish has saved my life more times than I care to count," he said through a clenched jaw. "She's done a hell of a lot for Pansy and for you as well. I see why you wouldn't have trusted her before, but now you have absolutely no right to treat her like you have." His voice lowered. "You have no idea what she's gone through."

Harry couldn't help but snort slightly. "Oh, and you do?"

"More than you know."

He sounded so convinced, Harry was disgusted. That was it; he refused to debate with dim-witted blockheads, and it appeared that being rescued by a Witch in Shining Undergarments had turned Malfoy into one.

Largely for his own entertainment, he abruptly stepped threateningly toward Malfoy until he almost ran into him, his lowered wand prodding hard into Malfoy's side (hidden from Pansy's vantage point). While Malfoy held his ground, Harry saw the raw fear that passed through his eyes as Harry approached, the sharp tremor that wracked through his entire body the moment Harry's wand made contact with it.

So the conservative movement's Poster Boy wasn't as put together as he'd like them all to believe.

"Are you really so daft as to be so thoroughly confounded by her spell?" Harry hissed.

Malfoy took a breath, clenching his hands into fists. Then he gave Harry a pitying look, which only irritated him more. "Do you really trust so little you'd remain blind to the truth?"

"The truth?" Harry laughed shortly. "Has she offered to go under Veritaserum, has she sworn an Oath of her honesty, has she given any of us some of her memories of this 'other world' so we can know these wild stories aren't anything other than well-fabricated lies?"

He glanced at Pansy and the midget for support — well, he doubted the midget would support him over her beloved Malfoy — but even Pansy was looking at him unhappily, her lips pressed together into a displeased frown.

He took a step away from all of them. "Stop looking at me like I'm the enemy! I'm trying to keep us all from being duped! Come on, Malfoy, you talk about the truth, so give me something to go on here. Has Granger done any of those things?"

A strange, almost conflicted, but certainly defeated expression crossed Malfoy's face. Harry sensed a victory. "That's right. I didn't think so—"

"Yes she has."

The second he heard the voice, he fought a scowl.

He looked down and gave Peia a scathing expression. "What?"

She stepped up next to Malfoy, who was looking at her, startled, as well. "I've seen it. The other world."

Harry frowned. "What you do mean, you've seen it?"

"I've seen it, in—" For a moment, the puffy-haired girl glanced toward Malfoy before she looked back at Harry, "—in her eyes."

"Impossible," he scoffed. "You can't have done Legilimency on her; how old are you, seven?"

"Twelve, and I didn't do anything to her; I just saw it."

Harry was about to tell her to beat it — and mean it this time — when she looked directly up at him, her dark eyes searching his.

"She reminds you of your mother," she said slowly, her voice thoughtful. Harry stiffened. "You're afraid that if you trust her, she'll do the same thing to one of us that your mother did to your father."

For a moment, Harry was actually unable to breathe. Then he jerked away from both the girl and Malfoy, forcing his gaze upward to the latter for an explanation, but Malfoy too was staring down at Peia in surprise.

After a second, he looked back at Harry. "She's done this for as long as she's been able to talk," he said, his voice cautious.

Harry held back a curse. So either this girl was a bloody Seer or a natural Legilimens, as impossible as that notion seemed - how could anyone be both a born Occumens as well as Legilimens?

Either way, it would be greatly inconvenient for him.

He felt Pansy's eyes staring at the side of his head, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her. Even she didn't know about what Longbottom had just vocalized; he had never wanted her to know…

Blasted imp! he thought ferociously again.

He hesitated for a very long moment, trying to decide how he wanted to handle the situation, before he looked back toward Peia again. "What am I thinking of right now?"

"It doesn't work like that," she said, and frowned. "I don't known why you're so unhappy. You want a memory of hers for proof, don't you? I've seen loads of them."

She didn't know why he was so unhappy? The girl had no blasted concept of social boundaries, did she?

"Alright, then," he gritted out. He conjured a flask and held it out to her. "Give me one of her memories. Make it a convincing one."

When she suddenly looked unsure, Malfoy swooped in like the predictable hero he was to explain how. Peia frowned in concentration, lifting her wand to her temple and following his directions. When a silvery thread of the memory emerged, she gasped in surprise, and Harry could honestly say he was almost as astonished as she was that a second year had been able to extract one of her thoughts.

She continued the motion, slowly pulling it from her mind.

The blasted thing seemed to keep coming.

Before she could inevitably lose it, Harry shoved the flask toward the thread and trapped it inside, where it took up an exorbitant amount of space.

He had no sooner bottled it than Malfoy had snatched the flask out of his hand.

Harry stared at him in astonishment. "The hell, Malfoy?"

"I'll destroy it in front of you after you see it," he said evenly. "Bring a Pensieve, or we'll find one together."

Harry scowled. So Malfoy trusted him about as much as Harry trusted Granger, did he? Well, there dashed Pansy's fantasy of them all ever becoming friends. "I'd say you aren't in much of a position to be snapping out orders," he growled.

"He has one, Draco," Pansy suddenly said, ignoring Harry's reply. She began moving. "I'll go and get it."

Her tone made him more nervous than any threat Malfoy could ever make. He finally let himself look toward her. Her blue eyes caught his for a long, searching moment that left him sick inside before she left for his bedroom.

He knew there would be questions. The answers were ones he didn't want to relive, not again.

After she disappeared into his quarters, he forced himself to return his attention to Malfoy, automatically taking in the other man's weaknesses. Though he was standing tall, the gaunt blond was starting to look more worn around the edges, his pale face ashen, his right leg no longer seeming to support any of his weight, the flask shaking very slightly in his hand. Harry had to give him some credit, though: very few could withstand his glare for extended periods of time.

Harry nodded toward the flask. "You realize I could just summon that from you right now."

"And exploit an unarmed man?" The conservative's tone was incredibly irreverent considering the fact he was as good as a convict and Harry was a bloody Elite. "That would put you at the level of a -" his jaw tightened, "- a Weasley." For a moment, Malfoy's eyes glazed, before they returned to Harry emotionlessly. "I didn't think even you would sink that low, Evans."

The words struck a chord Harry didn't know was inside him. His nostrils flared, and he honestly didn't know what he would have done had Pansy not breathlessly reappeared beside them, her cheeks flushed, holding out the metal bowl. "Here it is."

Malfoy glanced down at Peia briefly. "Which one was it, Pei?"

"All of them."

Harry didn't like how serious the normally obscenely bubbly child sounded. He also didn't like Malfoy's unsmiling, almost concerned reaction before he looked back at Harry, his expression as cool as it had been when he'd first warned him off Granger.

"Draco? What does she mean?" Pansy asked.

Without breaking Harry's gaze with a steady one of his own, Malfoy tipped the flask and silvery tendrils into the bowl, where they began to swirl. "It means he's going to be in for a nasty shock." He nodded once at Harry. "I recommend you prepare yourself."

Harry scoffed at the suggestion. He couldn't help but glance once into Pansy's worried eyes, and he knew it was a poor choice the moment he did.

He set his jaw and returned his gaze to Malfoy's hard expression. "We'll see who's in for a shock," he said icily.

Unhesitatingly, he plunged in the Pensieve.

Fog swirled around him until it left him standing in a tiny village square. Snowflakes drifted down around him, Christmas lights strung all around, illuminating the night. Something moved to his right, and his attention was suddenly drawn to —

He froze.

He found himself staring at… himself.

But yet… it wasn't himself, not really. Looking closer, he saw that this self was several inches shorter than he was, looked less broad as well, and was wearing an embarrassing pair of glasses, his Muggle clothing old and worn. Beside the other self was none other than My Granger, but she also didn't look much like herself, either — this version of her wore equally smudged, extremely conservative muggle clothes without an ounce of makeup or adornments, wild hair messily pulled back from her face.

Both were staring intently up at something directly in front of them.

Harry turned to see a statue a few feet away. Unlike the imposing, glittering effigies that had been erected around the castle, this one was smaller, unassuming, its curves smooth and lifelike. It featured two people, one of them holding a small child. Harry peered closer at the faces—

He stiffened again. After several long seconds, he forced himself to swallow.

The woman in the statue was his mother. And the man beside her — the man was his father.

His mouth opened and closed. No statue, no commemoration of his father existed, would ever exist, and certainly not in some little village Harry himself had never seen…

Suddenly, his other self spoke. "C'mon," he said, heading toward a nearby church, lights and holiday carols drifting from it. My wordlessly followed him into the cemetery behind it, and Harry followed them both as the pair moved from row to row, peering at tombstones.

He felt somewhat detached from the scene, as though he was watching a television show featuring an identical twin or a double — this person who looked exactly like him but was living through an experience that Harry himself had never had, talking in a strangely open, excited tone that Harry would have never used.

Every now and then, they'd spot someone whose name was familiar — even some relations of the Sovereign himself, who his other Self seemed to know, which made Harry suspicious - why would the Sovereign ever bury his relatives in such an unassuming little gravesite?

But none of the graves must have belonged to those for whom they were ultimately searching, until My said,

"Harry, they're here… Right here."

His other self froze. After a minute, he moved toward her, his gait suddenly less confident, slower. Harry frowned and cut in front of his lookalike to read the words on the grave that My was staring at.

The first line on the tombstone was strange but not a surprise.

James Potter, born 27 March 1960, died 31 October 1981

The second one was something different entirely.

Lily Potter, born 30 January 1960, died 31 October 1981

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Disbelief rocked him, so much that he was extraordinarily grateful no one was around him to witness it. So stunned was Harry that he didn't hear the words his other self spoke then; the only thing he did hear was My answering in a very gentle voice that was so unlike anything My would have ever said to him, or anyone, "It doesn't mean defeating death in the way Death Eaters mean it, Harry. It means, you know — living beyond death. Living after death."

Harry was horrified when his other self actually began to cry, the teardrops freezing on his cheeks. At the same time, unexpected emotion pulled at his own chest, and he realized he was suddenly much more connected to what was happening around him than he would have liked.

Even though he would have never been caught dead showing it outwardly like his other self was now.

How different was this place, that both his parents were dead and lovingly memorialised, and his mother had accepted the last name of Potter?

Then My had taken his hand — not dating, my arse, he thought — and conjured a wreath of roses, which his other self lay on the grave.

Before he could begin to analyse the meaning of all of this, of what could have caused his other self's parents to have died on the same day only months after he was born, the scene and memories swirled around him.

He was in a spare Hogwarts' classroom, various school supplies strewn across the room. His other Self was suddenly younger, with a full, untidy head of hair his mother would have never tolerated — too unkempt, too Potter-like — looking irritated while My looked encouraging.

"Concentrate, Harry, concentrate," she was urging, as if she somehow knew whatever they were practising better than he did.

"What d'you think I'm trying to do?" he said angrily. "A great big dragon keeps popping up in my head for some reason! Okay, try again…"

The scene flew by as if hours were passing and still books and quills flew at top speed through the air as they continued to practice, and then it switched to an empty Gryffindor common room, this one much more barren than the technology-outfitted common room with which Harry was so familiar.

My was standing there, looking tired but pleased. "That's better, Harry, that's loads better. I really think you've got it!"

The scene swirled again.

"You know the laws, Miss Granger."

Harry recognized the voice before tendrils of thought had even settled.

He temporarily stopped breathing.

The Sovereign himself was standing right in front of him, peering at him intently.

Instinctively, Harry threw up his Occlumency blinds… only for the Sovereign to turn around and walk toward a set of double doors. It was only then that Harry realized they were in… the Hogwarts Hospital Wing?

He looked behind him to see his other self and My standing there, looking even younger than before, their clothing dirtied, cuts on their faces. Neither of them looked afraid to be standing, alone, in the Sovereign's presence. Instead, they looked rather baffled.

Quickly, he steeled himself and looked back at the most powerful wizard of the age as he spun back toward them. Now that Harry thought about it, the older wizard didn't look quite like the all-knowing autarch who struck fear into the hearts of all who opposed him (and all who didn't): his robes —and most of his appearance, for that matter — were positively humble and unassuming, and when he held up his hand and rubbed his thumb and index finger together, some part of his expression actually appeared concerned. "Three turns should do it, I think."

And then Harry was standing on the Hogwarts grounds near a great white tomb on the shores of the lake, and his other self and My and a Ronáld Weasley who looked as scruffy and destitute as a conservative and nothing at all like Weasley were huddled in a group talking about some person Harry didn't know nor care about named Scrimgeour.

He glanced toward the tomb. A large multitude of people dressed in black milled around it, as if the funeral of whoever was interred there had just concluded. It was a magnificent structure - he could say for certain that nothing like it existed at Hogwarts, certainly no tombstones at all that Harry had ever seen. Some part of his stomach strangely filled with dread, though he didn't know why.

With a brief look at the three behind him, he walked quickly over to the marble slab, squeezing his way through the hoards of people near it, all of whom simply vanished into small tendrils of cloud when he pushed past them. His gaze sharply searched the white expanse for some indication as to who was buried inside.

Engraved at the tomb's base, he finally found the words:

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Hogwarts Headmaster, 1852 − 1997

A great man, wizard, teacher, and friend.

His service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.

"Death is but the next great adventure."

Harry had no idea how long he stared at the text, unblinking.

The air left his lungs.

He felt like he'd been punched in the gut.

The Sovereign had never been Hogwarts Headmaster. The Sovereign had never died, and even if he had, these words were absolutely not how he would have chosen to be remembered. The woman who looked like My Granger was not My Granger no more than the man who looked like himself was him; these events that were taking place had never actually happened at all.

Yet he had; she was; they were.

Harry knew exactly what this all meant: That Granger's entire preposterous story was true, that another universe really did exist with doubles from his own, yet it had its own history, its own, completely different versions of everyone he had ever known, himself included, and the woman who was My Granger but who simultaneously wasn't My Granger really had come from it, somehow, as unbelievable as it seemed.

Even though he hadn't moved from where he stood at the foot of Albus Dumbledore's tomb, so far from My and Weasley and his other self that they were nearly out of sight, Weasley's voice carried into range: "We'll be there, Harry. At your aunt and uncle's house. And then we'll go with you wherever you're going."

It was an oath of loyalty that would have never left Weasley's mouth, or My's for that matter, but Weasley sounded like he meant it with every bone in his body. Harry knew, rationally, that the words were not being spoken to him, but something in them moved him so much he felt his eyes begin to - begin to burn with something that felt strangely like tears.

He shoved the sensation away, of course, as his other self protested, and My disagreed, "You said to us once before, there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?"

"We're with you whatever happens," Weasley said, and Harry looked up to see both My and Weasley looking at his other self so earnestly, so determinedly, that something actually wrenched in his chest.

Suddenly, her throwing herself on both him and Weasley when she had regained consciousness after her collapse on the Hogwarts Express made sense. He could see it now, as much as it unsettled him: that they were friends in her world. No - not just friends. This was a kind of friendship with which Harry himself was unfamiliar, had only ever seen between the likes of Pansy, Malfoy, that blockhead Zabini —

But then he was yanked away from the white tomb, and memories began to stream past him faster now, so fast he hardly had time to process what he was seeing before they would switch again, and abruptly his other self was nothing more than a slip of a child and so was My, and she dashed at him and threw her arms around him and cried, "Harry — you're a great wizard, you know!"

"I'm not as good as you."

"Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things — friendship and bravery and — oh Harry — be careful!"

Why exactly his other self needed to be so careful was never answered. The scenes were swirling past him so quickly he felt dizzy, nauseous, dragons and fire and thestrals and flashes of light flying all around him as his other self and My ducked and fought with furious, desperate skill that Harry had rarely seen amongst his peers, and people were flashing by as well, people who Harry knew from his own world but who looked and seemed like strangers here:

"You're Muggles! We must have a drink! What's that you've got there? Oh, you're changing Muggle money. Molly, look!"

"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione."

"We've got to be able to defend ourselves!"

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood."

"It's Levi-oh-sa, not leviosa!"

"Harry, we can't be here, we have to go now!"

"If you're going to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!"

"Where is it?! Tell me where it is, you filthy mudblood; TELL ME! Crucio!"

"Hermione!"

"Harry!"

As a towering, glowing wall of flaming Fiendfyre shot toward them in a cavernous room piled with artifacts from floor to ceiling, Harry rocketed backward out of the Pensieve to Pansy's, Malfoy's and Peia's expectant gazes.

He stumbled to his knees and vomited immediately.

A/N: So did this chapter at all change your opinion of Harry Evans - or do you still dislike him just as much? This is actually Part I of this chapter; I know I promised action but this first part grew so long I decided to split it into two!