Harry Potter

Harry was confused. It wasn't just the basic memories, though those were bad enough. He'd been desperately frightened, sure he was going to be Kissed, sure Dudley already had been, and positive that Uncle Vernon was going to kill him if he made it out of this mess…. And then he was looking up at another version of himself, older but still clearly Harry Potter, and being told to drink a series of potions. He did, because there was also an older but still clearly Hermione telling him to do it, and the potions did make him feel much better. Physically. They didn't do a thing for his confusion.

Everyone being older was…. Alright. Not great, but alright. His internal clock was still trying to catch up, but it at least agreed that time had passed since the dementors found him in Little Whinging. Had he been in a coma or something? But why would he be… outside Hogwarts, it looked like, instead of in the Hospital Wing?

The situation he looked out on when he sat up was less than alright. It looked like there'd been a battle. Dead bodies lay everywhere, including Voldemort's. He watched the Other Harry, baffled at how the biggest threat to his existence had apparently been killed without any effort on his part.

Had he somehow been sent to the future? Or a different world? A parallel universe?

Then he was ushered away from the battlefield by Snape, who was being unusually emotionless. He didn't hear a single scathing insult to his intelligence or parentage. If anything, the man seemed empty. Enough that Harry almost felt tempted to ask if he was okay. The man took him to an older Ron, who examined him for a moment, then started crying of all things. Not obviously, no, but there were definitely tears in the other boy's blue eyes.

After Ron recovered somewhat, he showed Harry a piece of paper about a house and led him through the Floo to "Grimmauld Place," wherever that was. Was this where Ron and Hermione had been all summer? Harry remembered being upset they wouldn't tell him anything. He'd probably still be upset if he weren't so confused. "So… what happened?" he asked eventually.

Ron hesitated. "I don't know if I should be the one to explain things," he said haltingly. "Sirius and er, well…" He grimaced. "Just… Know that Voldemort's dead now, and try not to freak out too much. Okay?" He paused, looking down. "And I guess you should know… My dad's gone too. And mum… she didn't take it well. She's… not right. Better than at first, but still not right."

Eyes wide, Harry gaped at his best friend, earlier irritation forgotten. "How?"

"Voldemort," Ron said bitterly, "And also grown-ups being stupid, really, but mostly Voldemort. He had this great ruddy snake he'd stuffed part of his soul into, and it bit Dad. T - the other Harry saw it in a vision and went to Dumbledore, but between the venom and the blood loss... The Healers weren't able to save him."

"I'm so sorry," Harry said, feeling like he should do something more, but not knowing what. He'd never even considered the possibility that any of his friends would lose their parents too. How much worse must it be to lose parents that you'd actually known?

They stood there in silence for a moment before Ron shook his head and smiled weakly. "That was a bit over a year ago now, so… Well anyway, the other Harry should be here by tonight at the latest. He's gotta deal with cleanup and the press, but Hermione won't let him exhaust himself too much with all that." He winced. "I hope you weren't interested in her. Or Ginny, really, because both of them and Luna are kind of dating him."

Harry stared. His doppleganger had some sort of harem? "What."

Ron flushed. "Well, yeah, basically. I'm not complaining, because he'd probably be evil if they hadn't been there… but yeah. It took some getting used to."

"So he's… the evil version of me?"

"No!" Ron ran his hand through his hair in frustration and finally huffed. "Hermione's gonna kill me but… You know the snake I mentioned?"

A pit opened up in Herry's gut, and he suddenly didn't want to know what Ron was about to say.

"And how it had a piece of Voldemort's soul in it?"

Harry started to shake his head, opened his mouth to say, "Nevermind," or "Tell me later," or anything so Ron wouldn't say -

"Well, so did you."

Harry felt faint. "Me." He touched his forehead, where the scar should have been before remembering this body wasn't his.

"Yeah," Ron nodded. "And when the dementor Kissed you, it took, well, you and left-"

"Voldemort."

"Well, Tom, really." Ron grimaced. "Good thing too. I don't know if we'd have survived two Voldemorts."

Harry took a deep breath, feeling like he was the only sane one in this conversation. "Ron, you remember second year, right? Tom Riddle is Voldemort!" If he sounded a bit hysterical, he thought he was rather justified.

"Tom was Voldemort," Ron corrected.

"Right. So Voldemort's running around in my body and says 'oh but I'm good now' and you just decide to believe him?!" Harry couldn't look at Ron, couldn't stand to think how his best - first - friend had replaced him. And not just Ron, but Hermione and Ginny? And whoever this Luna girl was? How many people had decided they were just fine with Voldemort instead of Harry? Did Sirius do the same? He realized distantly that he was shaking, voice getting louder as he spoke, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "So you're being all friendly with Voldemort. No way this could possibly go wrong. Not like this is the bloke who's murdered who-knows how many people and almost murdered your sister and tortures his followers for fun and -"

"WELL HOW ELSE WAS I GOING TO GET MY BEST FRIEND BACK?" Ron roared.

Harry froze. He took in Ron's appearance: his shoulders hunched and fists clenched, freckles stark against too-white skin. Harry took a deep breath and nodded stiffly, still angry but capable of listening at least. "Fine. Explain then."

Ron swallowed. "Dumbledore knew what happened. And he didn't have any plan for getting you back. Apparently, he didn't think it was possible. But Hermione… Okay, so they brought him back here, yeah? And we didn't know that he wasn't you yet, and he was acting like we'd really hurt him by not speaking to you all summer. Kind of read us the riot act." Ron rubbed the back of his neck. "We were all really sorry about that, by the way. It wasn't good of us. Dumbledore might've told us not to tell you anything, but he was just our headmaster, really. We should have done a better job of being your friends. I'm sure you would have, if it were the other way around."

"You're getting a bit off topic," Harry pointed out, disliking the surrealness of hearing that Voldemort had taken anyone to task for being bad friends.

"Right," Ron said, flushing. "So I was giving him space, but at some point Hermione realized what happened. And she somehow made him swear to get you back." He huffed. "I'm pretty sure every person who found out what happened immediately asked him to get you back. Must have driven him crazy… though, actually he was probably laughing about it the whole time. All he had to do for our loyalty was get you back, which he was going to do anyway for Hermione." Ron shrugged. "But either way, he did. No one else had any idea what to do, but Harry, Tom brought you back. After Dad… I couldn't lose you too. Not when there was a way to get you back right there in front of me."

Shaken, Harry stared down at the ground. "Why?" he asked at last. "He's - I'm sure he could've just not and made it sound reasonable and all… Why would he actually do it? And why would he kill Voldemort?" A thought struck him. "And wait, if he's in my body, then whose body is this?" He looked around wildly, searching for a mirror.

Ron's ears turned red. "Er, well, actually…"

Harry stared. "Ron, whose body am I in?"

"Well, you see…"

There was only one option Harry could think of that would make Ron this hesitant to answer, but it made no sense. He'd seen Voldemort's body. "Ron, please tell me I'm not in Voldemort's body."

"...You don't look bad," Ron said with a wince. "Tom made sure of that much at least."

"Why the bloody hell am I in Voldemort's body, Ron? And whose body was the dead one then?"

Ron held up his hands. "I don't know. I mean, I don't know if they made a fake body or what, just that Snape had that part covered. But well, no one else had really thought about how it was going to work, getting you back. I guess we should have, but we didn't, so when he declared that was keeping your body…" Ron shrugged. "One of you was going to need a new body, and we didn't have any real way of making him change his mind."

Harry looked at his hands, but they looked like perfectly normal hands. Not his maybe, but not Voldemort's either. "I thought you said he wasn't evil," he muttered.

"He's not, but I didn't say he was nice either." Ron sighed. "Look, can you just wait till he gets back to explain things? Not saying you won't still be mad, but at least you'll be able to see what I mean. He's not going around murdering people left and right…" Ron seemed to think about that for a moment, then smiled sheepishly. "Or maybe he has been, but it's mostly just been Death Eaters, and he doesn't torture his followers."

"His followers?" Harry asked incredulously, certain he didn't want to know but too Gryffindor to leave it alone.

"Yeah, well, if he was going to be killing Voldemort, he couldn't really keep using his Death Eaters could he? So he made a new mark, and most of the school took it…"

It was turning out to be a very upsetting day all around.

AN: Yes, Ron, Tom was loving getting loyalty in return for doing something he was already planning on doing, and I'm glad you finally realized that. Course, Hermione wasn't the first one to ask him that, but I guess Ron and Snape don't sit down and have many heart-to-hearts.