WARNING: Dyslexia is a language disability, missing words and misspellings are ahead of you.
Summary: She made a wish to not be alone and he made a wish to live. Ninety years spin without her and Harry Potter blinks twice. She's been missing and he's somehow alive, still in the Forbidden Forest and yet… the war has just begun. When all faith is lost, they will find hope in each other. 5th Year Au Time travel. Crack treated seriously.
Thank you, Sectumus Prince!
Tone of this Story: "When all the world's against you, and you're fresh out of fucks to give," AppoApples.
Prologue
She ran, her family tome clutched in her hand.
Home had never been home.
Hogwarts had been her refuge, and Newt Scamander her only friend.
The only one who gave a damn about her.
Her footfalls crashed through the Forbidden Forest.
She ran and she ran, until she tripped midway through a clearing. She stayed on her knees, flipping open the book that had been written in ancient runes.
Leta Lestrange knew she was a monster, no better than her family, but as long as Newt could look at her and see the human beneath, she thought that maybe, just maybe, things would be okay once she graduated; once she had her independence.
But Scamander had been expelled, and if someone like him, with his heart and kindness, could be expelled, what hope was there for her.
Her hands shook as she searched the page for the incantation. She didn't know where this ritual would take her, Leta just needed help finding where she belonged. Because it wasn't here, not anymore.
She spoke the words, the ancient syllables falling from her tongue, something more Nordic than Latin. For the ritual to be successful, she had to keep her mind clear, her full focus on her desire to find where she belonged.
The clearing seemed to rustle around her. The bows of the trees bowed toward her, as if curious to her purpose. The leaves shook, her words lost to the building sound.
So it was as if the Forest itself spoke the ritual words with her.
For a moment, a brief moment, Leta thought it would work, thought she would find her place in the world.
But as was her way, her thoughts betrayed her.
She lost focus of where and wished only that she wouldn't be alone any longer.
The wind spun about her, and for a moment she was comforted, for a moment, she imagined life could be different than it was.
It was a fleeting sensation as her every sense fell away.
While the book remained, the sixteen-year-old girl disappeared, and the Forest fell still, as if holding its breath, waiting for someone to come or something to happen.
Leta Lestrange was never seen again.
-0-
"Harry Potter," he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. "The Boy Who Lived."
None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting.
Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear.
He accepted his fate even as he wished to live.
Hy saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.
Until it wasn't.
In a whirl of leaves, Harry fell to the dirt and someone fell on top of him. He grunted, too stunned that he was alive to move.
The person who had fallen on him, pushed up, her hands on his chest.
He blinked once, then again, his eyes focusing on the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
She pushed off of him with a curse. "It brought me a boy?"
Harry sat up. "Excuse me?"
She stood, brushing off her robes—Slytherin robes—and said briskly, "The ritual, it brought me you when it was supposed to take me somewhere else."
Harry shook his head, but quickly stopped. The motion made him feel dizzy.
"Why is your head bleeding?" she asked, eyeing him warily.
He put a hand to his scar, and it came back wet. He stared down at the blood on his hand and marveled at the lack of pain.
"I should be dead," he said mildly.
"Where did you put my book?" she asked.
"Your book? That's your question?"
"Yes."
"Your question to me?"
She raised her chin. "Why should I know who you are?"
He blinked at her. "I'm Harry Potter."
She crossed her arms. "Leta Lestrange."
"Relative of Bellatrix Lestrange?"
"Who?" Leta asked.
Harry looked around. They were in the same clearing he had been in, sans Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and Hagrid. He shook his head again, ignoring the black spots that chased across his vision.
"Let's start over," he said. "How long was I out?"
"Out?"
"Unconscious," he clarified.
She took her wand from her robe's inner pocket and cast a time spell. A time spell that included the date.
Harry's eyes widened.
1995.
He was two years in the past.
He looked at Leta, who was recasting the spell, over and over again.
Harry checked his own pockets. He was wearing his school uniform and he was smaller than he had been. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the holly wand rather than Draco's wand in his pocket.
He did the time spell as well with the same results.
He swallowed. "Wrong date for you, too?"
On the whole, it wasn't the weirdest thing to happen to him. It wasn't even the first time he had time travelled, but he had the feeling that this wouldn't be reversible like with the time turners.
Leta took several minutes to reply, and he didn't rush her, but finally she said, "Eighty years."
He raised a brow. "In the past?"
"In the future," she said softly.
He patted her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
She pulled back from him. "Sorry? Why aren't you freaking out, Potter?"
Harry was delighted to realize that he was nobody to her, and he said, a tad bit too cheerfully, "I just survived the Killing Curse for a second time, so I'm just grateful to not be dead."
She blinked at him, then said, "I have nowhere to go."
He thought of what life was like in 1995 and decided he wouldn't be going back to the Dursleys.
"We're still in the Forbidden Forest, right?"
Leta nodded.
Harry took a deep breath. "I know somewhere we can go."
Chapter 1 - La Gasp
Hermione Granger felt ill. Harry had been missing for the summer, since news had arrived that two Dementors had attacked his home. He had disappeared, as if into thin air, without any indication of where he had gone.
According to Professor Snape, the Order of the Phoenix's spy in the Death Eaters, the Dark Lord was just as interested to know where Harry had gone.
So not only was Harry missing, but his cousin, Dudley Dursley, had been Kissed by the dementors and had died without his soul.
Hermione had driven herself mad thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened to him.
Dolores Umbridge's little speech about the Ministry interfering at Hogwarts was not making her feel better.
The start of the year feast tasted like ashes on her tongue.
Dumbledore rose to give his speech before dismissing everyone. He hesitated before releasing them. He let out a long sigh, and said gravely, "I am grieved to inform you that Harry Potter has yet to be found after the death of his cousin during the summer holidays. If anyone has any information regarding his disappearance—"
"Excuse me, Professor."
Everyone turned in unison to the boy who had stood at the end of the Gryffindor table.
He sounded like—
"I'm fine," Harry said with a half-wave. Dressed in his uniform, he looked perfectly unharmed.
The room was thrown into complete silence.
Umbridge squawked, "Do you have any idea—"
"How much I've inconvenienced everyone?" he cut her off. "Yes, I do, but seeing as I've lost count of how many assassination attempts I've survived since entering the Wizarding World, I thought discretion the better part of valor."
Hermione gaped at him. She looked to Ron, who was also open-mouthed.
Fred and George rose, clapping.
Then all the students were clapping, sans the Slytherins.
Harry bowed to the room before sitting back down where he had apparently been all evening.
"Well," Albus said, his voice slightly strained. "After such wonderful news, I think it best everyone get some sleep before their start of term."
Everyone rose.
Hermione was shoving people aside, but she lost sight of Harry in the crowd.
Albus was half-panicked when he lost track of Harry in the crowd.
"They went up to your office, Professor," one of the portraits said.
Minerva and Severus followed Albus up to the office.
"If those two friends of Potters were keeping this information from us…" Severus growled. The Potions Master implicitly believed that Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger had kept their silence while the rest of them worried about Harry, but Albus didn't believe that was possible, as he had looked into their minds and both had been as devastated by Harry's disappearance as the rest of them.
But if Albus thought Harry arriving safely at Hogwarts unharmed was a shock then he was far from prepared from who awaited him in his office.
"Leta Lestrange!?" Minerva gasped, horrified.
Waiting for them on Albus's desk sat Harry Potter, shoulder-to-shoulder with young Leta Lestrange, who had disappeared ninety years ago.
The positive sign was that Fawkes was on Harry's lap, his tail feathers draped over Leta's lap.
"Hello, Professor," Leta said dryly. "Miss me?"
"Making friends with the enemy, Potter?" Severus sneered.
Albus exchanged a look with Minerva. Severus was too young to know the story of Leta, or that she was only very distantly related to the Lestranges he had known.
Harry smirked. "Leta went to school before Grindelwald or Voldemort rose to power, Professor Snape. There is no reason for us to be enemies."
"Harry," Albus said gently. "Your cousin…"
"Was kissed when I disappeared, yes, I read the paper. What became of my Aunt and Uncle? Is Mrs. Figg alright?"
Albus paused. He was again humbled by Harry's compassion. He wondered if Harry knew that Mrs. Figg was a squib, though supposed it was right of him to worry, given how close the attack had been to home.
"Mrs. Figg came to no harm. Your Aunt and Uncle were devastated by their son's death and the Aurors were forced to erase you from their memories—memories of all magic, in fact."
"What do they think happened to Dudley, then?" Harry asked.
"His parents believe he died in a car accident," Minerva said.
Albus was able to glance into Harry's mind and was pleased when he found no trace of Voldemort there. Harry was picturing his cousin saying, I don't think you're a waste of space. Albus saw Harry's true sorrow at his cousin's death.
There was a cruel irony to that, and while no parent deserved to lose their child, nor Dudley his horrific fate, the reason they had been left, however… It had a certain sense of symmetry.
Then Harry broke eye contact and shoved Albus out of his mind with a sharp sensation, like a door being slammed on his arm.
It wasn't an effective expelling technique, but it got the message across that Albus wasn't welcome. He retreated, not truly wanting to invade the boy's mind more than assessing his condition.
He couldn't quite tell if Harry was aware of what he had just done, but if he had been with Leta Lestrange for the last few weeks, many improbable things seemed plausible.
Albus didn't like it.
"How did you disappear, and where have you been staying?" he asked both the teens.
The Slytherin and the Gryffindor exchanged a look before shrugging in unison.
Minerva didn't make a sound but Albus could feel her bone-weary sigh as if it was his own, because he felt the same. Once upon a time, he had seen the best in Leta, but he had learned his lessons with the Lestrange family, and he had a particularly bad feeling about her association with Harry.
Had Voldemort been feeding them lies? Had Leta been in suspended animation somehow? Or was this some type of ritual that had gone bad?
What type of time magic had been used?
Albus didn't think it was reversible, given that Leta hadn't aged in eighty years and no one had seen her in that time. But whatever doubts he had, whatever theories, he could believe Leta was being used. He couldn't believe she was evil, not with Fawkes trilling softly as she petted his flame-hued feathers.
Minerva cleared her throat. "Harry, the Ministry has taken over your case. You will be resigned to a guardian who is able and your nearest kin. Ms. Lestrange, I will assume the same will hold true for you."
"Who is my closest kin?" Harry asked. "Please don't say the Malfoys."
Albus sighed. "I do not know, my boy. However, Ms. Lestrange, I believe the Malfoys are your closest living kin."
Leta had no visible reaction to this. She merely asked, "Will I be allowed to resume classes?"
Albus shared a look with Minerva.
Of all the problems they had of late, finding a student who had been missing—from time—had not entered into Albus's calculations.
Minerva looked at Leta. The two of them had never gotten along. Minerva had just been starting out as professor, and Leta was having her own difficulties.
"You didn't take your OWLs, did you?" Minerva asked.
"No."
"Then you will retake your fifth year."
Harry grinned. "It will give you time to adjust to the times."
Leta rolled her dark eyes at him, but a smile tugged at the edges of her lips. She looked at Harry with a near palpable fondness.
Albus was struck by how much Harry reminded him of Newt Scamander in that moment. The same kindness imbued them both.
He was saddened then by the bitterness that shaded who Harry might have been, born from a harder childhood than Albus had ever intended for him.
Amelia Bones had taken over Harry's case after an investigation into his disappearance, and discovered a history of systematic neglect and abuse that Albus had made himself disbelieve. He hadn't believed that Petunia would hurt her sister's son.
He had been wrong.
"Can we go now?" Harry asked.
"Your school books—" Minerva began.
"I had my Gringotts Key on me," Leta said.
"How did you know what books to purchase?" Minerva asked.
"We asked the book clerk," Leta said flatly.
"Would I be able to switch out of Trelawney's class and into Arithmancy?" Harry asked.
"You will fail your OWLs," Severus drawled.
Harry shrugged. "I foresee myself failing my Divination exam."
Minerva, who loathed Divination, answered, "Yes, you can make the switch, however—"
"I already bought the books."
"There is only one," Severus said.
"I bought the third and fourth year books so I would have a chance of catching up," Harry said.
Albus cleared his throat. "My boy, before you go, we must know where—"
"No."
"Harry—"
"No, Professor."
"You insolent child," Severus snapped. "Do you have any idea what we've all done to protect you?"
"Do you want a gold sticker?" Harry asked.
Severus's lips curled. "We need to know where you have been."
"Alright," Harry said. "After you tell me who exactly sent the Dementors after me and killed my cousin."
"The Dark Lord," Severus said gravely.
Harry smirked. "Then where were the Death Eater witnesses? Voldemort does nothing without an audience. At least, not when it's me."
There fell another silence. Albus was a bit disturbed in Harry's conviction that it hadn't been Voldemort, more frightening still that Albus agreed with him.
"I think it best if you both settled in. Ms. Lestrange, I do believe it best if you obscure your origins. How you do so or if you do so will be up to you, seeing as you will be of age in a few months. Your disappearance is likely to raise some questions. I am afraid, however, that I am obliged to contact the Malfoys, as your next of kin. Though they will have little power over you, seeing as by New Year's you will be a legal adult."
"Fine," she said as if she were above all of this.
"And Harry, your new guardians will be assigned by the courts," Albus reiterated, hoping Harry would understand how dire the situation could become now that the Dursleys weren't an option.
But Harry only nodded. "Can we go now?"
Minerva bristled, but motioned for them to go.
The two teens hopped off the table in unison, moving toward the exit in sync.
It was perhaps one of the oddest pairs Albus had ever seen.
"What was that?" Severus demanded.
"Trouble," Minerva said. "That was trouble."
Hermione and Ron waited for Harry.
He didn't even look at them as he made his way toward his dorm room.
"Harry," Ron called.
Harry didn't pause.
Hermione caught his wrist, only for Harry to jerk away from her as if she had burned him.
"Don't, Hermione."
Concern filled her and she asked, "What's wrong, Harry?"
He only shook his head. "Things are different this year."
"What things?" Ron asked.
Harry sighed, not looking at him. "I'm different."
Hermione felt tears fill her eyes. "I know we angered you, not answering your letters, but Dumbledore—"
"Albus Dumbledore isn't who you think he is," Harry warned.
Her thoughts came to a screeching halt. She and Ron gaped at him.
Ron stuttered, "What do you mean, mate?"
"Dumbledore doesn't give a damn about my safety or anybody else's."
She gawked at him, "How can you—"
"First year," Harry snapped. "Three kids got through traps supposedly designed to keep the Dark Lord from immortality. Second year, we figured out the basilisk before any of them did. Third year, he gave you a bloody time-turner rather than make you face the fact that even you have limits. And last year? Not only did he hire another Death Eater for a professor, he didn't find a way to get me out of the Tournament that was an obvious trap.
"I'm done with it, I'm done trusting him, and I want nothing to do with his vigilante group that led to my parents' death and my godfather being falsely imprisoned."
"So you're not going to fight?" Ron asked.
Harry raised a brow. "I don't really get a choice in that. But I can choose how I live what's left of my life."
"And that doesn't include us?" Hermione asked. "After everything we've been through together?"
Harry didn't back down. "Not if you still trust Dumbledore."
"You sound like a Slytherin," Ron spat, standing tall beside Hermione.
She warmed at his support, but was instantly chilled by the look in Harry's eyes. Something in his eyes had changed, something tired and old that had laid down, something weary of the world.
When Harry spoke, his words were flat. "If I hadn't met Malfoy, I would have been sorted into Slytherin. Maybe if I had been, someone would have slit my throat in my bed, or maybe I would have learned how to give a damn about my own life rather than being told to shut up and sit still, yet praised every time I broke the rules to save someone else's life."
"Harry—" Hermione tried.
But he shook his head, taking another step back from them.
"Good night."
Then he walked away, as if they had never meant anything to him at all.
Hermione knew that Harry would be different after Cedric's death, after his cousin's death, but she could never have imagined how much.
AN: What did Harry and Leta get up to in the summer? What will they do now that they have free rein at Hogwarts? Who is Harry's new guardian? And is Voldemort prepared for a Slytherin and a Gryffindor to team up? Did I use a barrel of tropes that I will viciously subvert to deal with complex human emotions and honest human fallacy?
Thoughts, seabirds, or feedback, pretty please?