A/N: Hello everyone! Welcome back to another fic :) Welcome to the fic that chose to be much more than it should have. Please expect an expanded version of this in the new year, because I cannot help myself XD
This one is for Round 8 of The Houses Competition, where I'm in Ravenclaw House and writing for Potions. This competition, we have to write a drabble (500-1000 words) as well as a standard (1000-3000 words). This fic is the Standard of the two. Prompts are listed below.
Thank you kindly to Starr, and BeaWrites for the beta!
Word Count: 2995
Disclaimers/Warnings:
Summary: When Harry woke up in an unfamiliar bed, he didn't realize that he not only came back in time, but also changed dimensions. Ron is the Boy-Who-Lived?
Prompts:
The Houses Competition Y10 R8
[Trope] Role Swap
[Last Line] I never saw her again.
[Colour] Blue - Calm, Responsible, Sadness.
QLFC 2023 Autumn Bingo
Time Travel
Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry
"Another World"
My eyes shot open as I gasped, ears straining in the quiet darkness for hidden assailants as I returned to consciousness. Adrenaline coursed through me, the echoes of battle fading from my ears. Everything was peaceful, and I didn't like it.
A snore startled me in the stifling silence, and I grinned.
It worked!
However when another snore pierced the silent night, there was something off from it. It wasn't the gasping walrus-like sounds from Uncle Vernon, nor was it the loud sawing snore of Ron that I intimately knew. Was I not at the Dursleys? This wasn't the Burrow. Did our calculations not land me back at the beginning of the summer after the Battle at the Ministry?
I fumbled with the light on the bedside table before switching it on. Grabbing my glasses, I paused when they felt different. Squinting, I immediately noticed the black square frames instead of the circular ones I remembered.
Weird.
Sliding them on, I took a moment to take in my surroundings. This wasn't a room I recognized. The walls were a calming pale blue with Quidditch Posters plastered everywhere. It looked like one of every team decorated the wall, with the Appleby Arrows having a dedicated wall all to themselves. The duvet on the bed was a Gryffindor Burgundy. I marveled at how soft and warm it was, certainly warmer than the standard blankets at Hogwarts.
With the quality of the duvet, I was definitely not at Privet Drive either. The room held mahogany furniture, and it all looked vaguely familiar, as if I had seen it in a dream.
The ritual should have worked. It should have sent my consciousness back into my younger body to finish things off much sooner. Hermione's calculations said I couldn't go back further to save Sirius, but I could try to save Dumbledore. His death was the catalyst for the Second Blood War to start in fervor, and if I could prevent that–
A slight pain lanced through my temple and I held my head in my hands as I waited for it to pass. The ghost of an image of Sirius smiling at me crossed my mind, and I had to shove back the grief. For me, it would have been seven years last month that I had lost him. For this Harry whose body I now inhabited, it would have been days ago, a week at most.
Rustling wings by the window startled me, and I looked up, tears filling my eyes at the sight.
A healthy and alive Hedwig was settling on her perch near the open window, a dead mouse in her beak. I watched as she guzzled down her treat before she hooted in annoyance at my unmoving stare.
Without another thought, I leapt from the bed and rushed to her, giving Hedwig a giant hug. She nipped at me, but then snuggled in. Tears pricked at my eyes, but I hastily wiped them away.
"I missed you, girl," I whispered, holding onto her for a moment more before loosening my grasp. The last time I had seen her, she had taken a killing curse to the face to protect me as we flew away from the Dursleys. An unmitigable wave of sadness suddenly hit me as the gravity of my situation filled my mind. I hugged Hedwig close to me again. All of my friends, my found family, wouldn't be in this world. Oh sure, there would be versions of them, but none of them would have the memories that I do. I had come back to try to make the world a better place for them, and none of them would know of my sacrifice, or their own, to make things right. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna…
The snoring, which had easily faded into the background for me, suddenly stopped short. I stilled, listening intently as footsteps entered the hall before going into another room. A door closed, and then silence followed. I clutched Hedwig closer to me, eyeing the hallway through the cracked open door. She hooted in displeasure and wiggled free, nipping at my hands. I released her the rest of the way, a mumbled sorry spilling from my lips before I could stop it.
A toilet flushed, a door cracked open, and the footsteps started again, only to fall silent a moment later. Suddenly, two steps came towards my door and–
"Everything alright here, Prongslet?"
Sirius stood in the open door of my room. Sirius, the man who was my last chance at a father figure, the last bit of family that I had, who had been killed not even a week ago.
"Sirius," I breathed in shock, my mind numb for a moment before it suddenly whirled into overdrive. If he was alive, does that mean I came further back in time than I expected? But that didn't explain this room.
"Prongslet, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Sirius joked, exuding a calm presence even as he stood in his blue nightclothes. He reached out to put a hand on my shoulder, but I rushed forward to hug him, clinging to him as if he would disappear.
Sirius' arms surrounded me in a hug I didn't know I needed, and I broke down. Everything spilled forth, the stress of assuming I would have to do everything alone overwhelming me. I was just so done with doing things by myself.
"Sirius, I'm from the future…"
Sat in the kitchen an hour later with mugs of hot cocoa, after spilling everything to my Godfather, Sirius became serious–for once in my memory of him–and explained a few differences between my timeline and his. It seems I hadn't just gone back in time; I had traveled to an alternate universe.
My parents had been hunted down and tortured into insanity–just like Neville's parents in my original universe–when they had come out from under the Fidelius in order to take custody of Ron after his parents were murdered by Voldemort. Sirius had taken this universe's version of me in and raised me in my parents' stead.
Apparently, this world's prophecy was about the Sixth Son Born as the Third Month Rises.
What wrenched my heart and made me feel hollow was the fact that Mrs. Weasley was pregnant with Ginny when she was murdered.
"Where did Ron go? Please tell me he wasn't sent to live in the Muggle world with some bitter Squib relative!" I insisted.
"No, nothing like that! Ron and his older brothers were sent to go live with their Aunt Muriel."
"And Neville?"
"Raised by his parents, with three younger siblings in the following years: Beatrice, Oscar, and Elizabeth."
"And Hermione?"
"You never mentioned her. Perhaps you're not friends with her in this universe?"
The pit of my stomach dropped. A universe where I didn't have Hermione as a friend wasn't a universe I wanted to be in.
"Sirius? How can I fix this? I don't…I don't think I can do this without her."
Sirius grinned widely at me before cracking his knuckles. "I've been waiting for this moment since your dad announced your mum was pregnant. You've finally asked me for girl help! For a moment, I was thinking that you might have been a wizard's wizard, since you never brought any girls home or showed interest in them–"
"Sirius, I'm sixteen…or will be sixteen. Wait, what's today's date?"
"It's August eighteenth…or nineteenth now, since it's one in the morning…what does that have to do with anything? When I was your age, I already had four different girlfriends–"
"And look at your beautiful nonexistent wife whom you've settled down with," I replied sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
"Aaaaanyway, advice for talking to girls–"
The remainder of summer passed, too quickly for my tastes. September first arrived, and I didn't want to leave. I finally had a family that wanted me. I finally had a home, and Hogwarts was no longer the escape it once was for me.
Twelve Grimmauld Place had been a pit of despair and tragedy back in my world. Apparently taking in the responsibility of an infant in place of his best friends was enough for Sirius to clean it up to livable standards. With Kreacher's help, everything had been redone in shades of blue–not in some weird nod to his Ravenclaw classmates, but because this world's Lily, my mother, had once told him colors had a language just as vibrant as flowers.
Blue represented calmness, responsibility, and sadness. Sirius had found it fitting to immerse himself in what he was feeling–sadness at James and Lily Potter's condition–but had also wanted to surround himself and baby-me in the light blue wallpaper. He had wanted a calm life for me. He had wanted to inspire responsibility in himself. The color would always remind him of Lily's words.
"Okay, I think I'm ready." We headed into the sitting room, where my trunk sat by the fireplace. Kreacher stood next to it, and with a quick snap of his fingers, it shrunk down into the size of a bookbag. Thanking him, I tucked it under my arm as Sirius took a bit of Floo powder and threw it into the fireplace.
"King's Cross Station!" he called out and then he was gone. I paused for a moment, hesitating at using the Floo. The last several times I had used it, I flew out the other end, unable to keep my feet.
"Does Master want Kreacher to take him?" Kreacher asked. I turned, grinning widely.
"Please!" The next blink had me staring at the steaming scarlet engine of the Hogwarts Express.
Sirius snorted from my left. "Kreacher spoils you. Can't even blame him because I do the same," he teased. Kreacher disappeared with a faint pop. Sirius led me forward.
"Come on, let's get you settled."
Calm washed over me as we barreled towards Hogwarts. I never noticed how stressed I had been in my other world until this moment. Was this what it was like to have a normal year?
A commotion outside of my compartment roused me from my doze, and I shot to my feet to investigate. Cracking my compartment door, I looked to see the back of a platinum blond head.
Oh yeah. The annual Malfoy-Must-Taunt-The-Boy-Who-Lived visit. He surprisingly lacked his bookend cronies, but this was probably for the best. Looking past him, Ron stood with a glare on his face, a lightning bolt scar on his forehead, his wand out as he shielded Hermione with his arm.
My expression hardened.
What has Malfoy done now? Hermione looked like she was gingerly holding her shoulder while glaring at the Slytherin. Had Malfoy assaulted her?
My blood boiled at the thought. Malfoy spun on his heel and stalked off. If I remembered correctly, this was the year I followed Malfoy to his carriage with the Invisibility Cloak to spy on him. But with the Invisibility Cloak safely tucked away in my trunk, I was curious how Ron would copy events from my timeline.
"Ron, no!" Hermione hissed. Donning an ugly looking cap which looked remarkably like one of Fred and George's Headless Hats, Ron disappeared under an Invisibility Spell, leaving Hermione behind. The door between carriages snapped open and shut as Hermione looked miserable. I took this chance to open my compartment door the rest of the way.
"Hey, are you okay?" I asked, sticking my head out,. Hermione wiped some tears from her face before smiling.
"I'm fine, Harry, thank you," she replied. After meditating this past week and a half since arriving back, I was able to assimilate some memories from this world's Harry, enough to know that Hermione and I had the same relationship that she and Neville had in my world. It was enough that I didn't have to start from scratch, but could instead build upon the base of friendship that was already there. The Battle at the Ministry had still happened, and Ron had lost his eldest brother Bill in the commotion. Hermione had still gotten hurt.
Hermione turned to her compartment and grimaced, slowly closing the door, leaving her alone in the hallway. The faint scent of Dungbombs wafted by me, and I gagged.
That didn't happen last time.
"Hey, did you want to join me in my compartment? At least until Ron gets back?" I asked. That elicited a smile from Hermione.
"Alright. Just for a little while." She moved past me into the compartment. She primly took a seat and I followed after, closing the door but keeping the curtain open, sitting across from her.
"How was your summer?"
Through my persistence in the first month of school to improve my friendship with Hermione, by the time Halloween rolled around, I was the first person she came to once Professor Slughorn had started up the Slug Club parties. I had received my own invitation that morning during breakfast, a crisp folded piece of parchment with inky bats inviting me to the dinner party in the professor's room. Hermione's blinding smile as she waved her own invitation at me made my heart a little lighter.
After morning classes that day, she fell into step next to me while heading to lunch. "Ron got invited to a meeting with Professor Dumbledore after dinner tonight."
"Is he in trouble?" I asked, trying to remember if our first meeting in my timeline had been on Halloween.
"No, nothing like that. It seems that Professor Dumbledore is finally giving Ron lessons that he needs to defeat Voldemort," she replied. We paused our conversation as I held the door to the Great Hall open for her, letting her slip inside before me. There was a brief moment where Hemione looked over her shoulder at me, a smile on her lips, and I had to stop short. My heart raced, and I couldn't help but swallow thickly at the surge of emotions that suddenly came on, just from that once glance.
"Harry, are you coming?" Hermione called a few steps later when she noticed I was still in the doorway.
"Yes, of course, coming!" I called back, snapping myself out of wherever my mind just went. I had never noticed it before, but…
When had Hermione gotten so pretty?
Little interactions between us throughout the year led me to believe that Hermione and I were cultivating something special, something more than friendship. But when I asked her to be my date to the Slug Club Christmas party, she turned me down. Her reason? She had asked McLaggen in order to make Neville jealous. NEVILLE! Neville, who was currently more interested in snogging Lavender Brown in the Gryffindor Common Room than keeping up with his studies and his friends.
Though I suppose events were happening here just as they were in my original timeline. Ron took my spot as the Boy-Who-Lived while Neville took Ron's place as the best friend with a loving family. And I took Neville's place in the grand scheme of things.
I wish she would see me the way I finally saw her, as more than just a friend in the same House as me.
When I had decided to take my chance to take our friendship to the next level and ask Hermione to be my girlfriend, I hadn't realized what day it was. Coming back and living a next-to-normal life as I could was addictive. I could be a teenager and not have to worry about fighting the bad guys. Sirius had already committed his help to tracking down the Horcruxes while I was at school, so it wouldn't be left to three teenagers.
But as I met Hermione at the base of the stairs of the Astronomy tower, my stomach plummeted at a familiar cackling voice coming from the stairway leading up.
"Dumbledore is dead!"
"Watch out!" I had just enough time to pull Hermione out of the way before the door swung open widely and Death Eaters spilled into the hallway. Without even a second thought, I pinned her to me and threw on the Invisibility Cloak to shield ourselves.
"It's not even curfew yet! There's still students out!" Hermione hissed in my ears. I turned to face her, noting her wide-eyed worried expression. Before I could even open my mouth to reply, Hermione ducked out from under my arm and threw a curse at the nearest Death Eater.
Throwing the cloak off of me, my terror was suffocating as my wand flashed, sending out hexes and curses to cut a path to where Hermione was. In those few seconds, she had gone the length of the hallway and further to try to protect the students milling about before curfew.
My spells grew in intensity and lethality. It didn't matter to these monsters that they were adults hunting children. It didn't matter to me that I shouldn't have used as many explosive curses on them as I did. What mattered was getting to her side before anything could happen to her. I lost my Hermione Granger once already, I wouldn't lose this one.
"Hermione!" I called out to her. She took a moment to look at me sadly.
Before I could get closer, Neville and Ron appeared at her side. Neville looked frazzled, appearing from a hidden passage behind a tapestry down the way. Ron had red rimmed eyes and rage on his face.
I knew that pain in his eyes, that hopelessness that came from being unable to do a thing.
A Death Eater lunged for me, and I dodged out of the way, my wand snapping out a quick bombarda to make sure he didn't get up again. When I looked up to where the Golden Trio was, they were gone. I saw a glimpse of Hermione's curls disappear around the corner, and when I could finally fight my way over there, there was only an empty hallway.
I never saw her again.
