Chapter 1: Back to the Beginning
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Seventeen year-old Harry Potter opened his eyes. He was sitting on a bench in a white room. It was as clean and empty as King's Cross had been.
"Fuck!" Harry shouted, pounding his fists into the bench. He knew he was dead again. "I almost fucking had him! Dumbledore, are you here? Dumbledore? Hello."
Just then a person appeared wearing a black robe. Their hood covered their head and Harry couldn't see their face.
"Welcome back, Harry," a female voice says with a sigh. "We've got to come up with a proper plan this time, haven't we?"
"Sorry .. plan for what?" Harry replied.
"Your backstep," she replied. "I've got to send you back, haven't I?*
"But Voldemort… he killed me twice… once for the horcrux in my scar… but then he got me again just now. Wait… you can send me back?"
Harry's thoughts were catching up to what the woman was saying. "Are my friends still alive? It's not too late is it?"
"Harry, dear boy I'm afraid it is too late for this timeline. I have to backstep you much farther back than last time, I fear."
"Last time?" Harry asked. "also, what's a backstep?"
"Harry, walk with me," the woman began, opening a door Harry hadn't seen until just now. Harry stood up and quickly followed. He couldn't see where he was going but felt like he was in a hallway. Perhaps there were other invisible doors here and there in the blank whiteness that currently surrounded him.
"My name is Destiny," the hooded figure said. "We have met many times before, though you do not remember as I unfortunately have to wipe your memory when I send you back."
Harry, who was having a hard time taking this all in, did not reply.
Destiny continued. "You have a destiny of your own you see. I can send your soul back in time so you can relive your life. A 'do over', so to speak. I can tweak a few things here and there so there are subtle differences each time I send you but you never seem to be able to fulfill your destiny and kill Voldemort… no, we need a better plan…and I have one."
"This is bizarre," Harry said finally. "How many times have you sent me back?"
"I stopped counting at fifty, but it's probably close to one hundred," Destiny replied.
"I've failed to kill Voldemort a hundred times?" Harry said, sounding astonished. "I doubt I'll ever beat him then…"
"Oh, you will defeat him. It is your destiny. And that's where my new plan comes in," Destiny smiled. Harry still couldn't see her face under her hood, but he could hear from her tone of voice and her inflections that she was now smiling.
"Okay, well what's this big plan then?" Harry asked, not sure if it even made sense for her to share it. He'd be losing his memories before he was sent back, so what did it matter if she shared it with him or not?
"Are you familiar with 'the butterfly effect', Harry?" Destiny asked as she opened another invisible door and ushered him into a room with a large… computer? The computer screen was easily twenty feet across and took up one whole wall of the room. Destiny waved her arms around in the air and the computer responded. Her thought it looked like wandless magic.
"Sure, I know what the butterfly effect is," Harry said. "It's the idea that little decisions can have lasting consequences and all the little decisions we make in life add up to make us who we are."
"Very good, Harry," Destiny smiled as she interacted with the machine. Various scenes from Harry's life were playing on the screen. Multiple windows showed many different points in time all at once. "The effect is poorly named. A butterfly deciding to land here instead of there will hardly have a large effect on the time stream… but human decisions… they matter quite a bit."
"In any case," Destiny continued. "Usually, the small tweaks I make are random, just to see how your life plays out differently. Observe." She waved her hand and the Harry in the largest window on the screen punched Draco Malfoy in the face for calling Hermione a Mudblood.
"Hey, I never did that," Harry frowned.
"Oh, but you could have!" she responded.
"Wait," Harry frowned. "If you're making all these decisions for me behind the scenes, do I even have free will?"
"Oh, sorry, I've chosen the wrong words to describe what I actually do, Harry. I simply have the ability to view all possible decisions you might make. You still have free will to choose. My actual job is to simply observe your decisions and backstep you a bit if things go wrong. Sometimes I can send you back a day or just a few hours… and sometimes I realize you've made too many bad decisions and I have to send you back a year or two. So if your free will gets you in trouble, I can rewind a bit and you can try again. In theory I could do this as much as I like to make you do specific things. So I guess you could say I can take away your free will…I don't…I promise I don't…but I could. Oh, and also, if you actually die in any timeline, I have to send you back to the beginning… to your date of birth."
"So me having free will is why Voldemort keeps killing me?" Harry asked, feeling stupid.
"Yep. Well… maybe? I don't really know," Destiny shrugged. "If I knew what to have you do then I'd have set you on the right path and you'd have killed him already."
"But you have a plan this time?" Harry said.
"Oh, right! The plan!" Destiny said. "My plan for this time… is to have you help me make all the changes from here beforehand, and then I'll send you back. You just tell me what decisions you wished you'd made differently and I'll direct fate into giving you the opportunity to make those decisions after I send you back."
"I think I understand…" Harry said.. "I did have free will the first hundred times since everything was random, but this time I won't have free will… except I sort of do, in a way, since it will have been me making my decisions… I'm just making them ahead of time."
"Well done, Harry, that's exactly right," Destiny said. "So, tell me something you wish you'd done differently and I'll show you a simulation of the result."
"So, like, just to make sure I understand… I could tell you I wish I'd taken Ancient Runes instead of Divination and then, when you send me back, I'll do that "
Destiny waves her hand and the computer responded. "Done," she said. "No more death threats from Sybill Trelawney. Enjoy studying runes with Bathsheda Babbling."
Harry watched all of the windows on the computer screen playing different snippets of his new simulated life where he learned Runes instead of Divination. In some he was simply drawing runes. In other he was carving them. In several he was practicing and studying with Hermione.
"Interesting," Harry said. "So, what things do you think I should change?"
"Tough to decide, isn't it? I was thinking maybe I should just ask you questions about your life in the wizarding world and I'll make changes based on your answers. Changing things prior to your eleventh birthday never has much effect on anything, so let's just start at age eleven. What are some things you wish you'd done differently when you were eleven?"
"Well, if I could do my first year of Hogwarts over again, I suppose I wish I hadn't antagonized Draco Malfoy or Professor Snape so much. It would be nice not to have them as enemies. I wouldn't compromise my morals or anything, but I wish I'd been a bit less noble all the time as that seems to set them off."
"Okay," Destiny said, moving her arms in intricate patterns. "Here's a simulation of the second time you met Draco. You were just about to get sorted. He insulted Ron."
"I remember," Harry said. "He told me that some wizarding families are better than others and that I shouldn't make friends with the wrong sort, and I told him 'I think I can tell the wrong sort for myself, thanks.' Oh man, the look on his face! He was pissed," Harry grinned, rewatching the events on the screen in real time.
"Yes, well, let's run some simulations of what you could have said differently and see if any of them result in you and he not being enemies," Destiny said. Twenty different simulations played out on the screen in various windows at double speed. Then another twenty. Then another twenty. After a while a few of the windows were playing variations of their first meeting in Madam Malkin's, but they didn't play out any differently either.
"Oh, well this doesn't look good," Destiny frowned. "I'm only aware of one thing you could have done to change this outcome and that would be if you'd shook Draco's hand and abandoned Ron. That gets you sorted into Slytherin which is something I usually backstep you a few hours for in order to prevent."
"Great, so there's nothing I could have done to not be enemies with Draco?" Harry scoffed.
"Do you want to be in Slytherin?" Destiny said, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, hell no!" Harry retorted.
"Yeah, I didn't think so," Destiny laughed. "I've allowed that several times but you never get anywhere close to killing Voldemort. You were so close this last time. We should try to keep the timeline pretty similar to this last time I think."
"Fine, Draco's a lost cause for now. What about Snape?" Harry sighed. "Is there anything I could have done to get him off my case?"
"Oh, sure, you've been cordial with Snape several times before!" Destiny said, pulling up several of Harry's previous lives and playing back scenes of Harry and Snape getting along just fine.
"As you know, Snape loved your mum, so just act less like your dad and more like her and he'll treat you like a long lost son. If you look him in the eyes, smile as often as you can, and always behave respectfully to him, then you will win him over in no time. You have your mother's eyes after all…"
"Yeah… I know…" Harry said, rolling his eyes. He was a little tired of hearing it.
Destiny waved her arms a bit more and the screens all changed. "Okay, I'm limiting all future simulations so you're never a smart arse to Snape and you smile at him and look him in the eyes as much as you can. He'll hate you for, like, a month, but he'll quickly realize just how much you are like your mum and he'll start to care for you almost as much as he cared for her."
"Wow, that's amazing," Harry said. "Oh wait, do I still suspect he was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone?"
"No, in all of these new simulations Ron and Hermione are convinced it's him, but you are adamant it's someone else," Destiny said. "You suspect someone is after the stone but you never suspect a specific person. So, what else would you change about your first year of Hogwarts?"
"I wish Hermione, Neville, and I hadn't lost all those house points when we smuggled Norberta out of the castle for Hagrid," Harry said offhandedly.
"Done," Destiny said with a wave of her arm. "Neville and Draco we're caught out of bed that night, but you and Hermione remembered your invisibility cloak and we're never caught."
"Can't you keep Neville in the common room?" Harry asked.
"We can only change your decisions, Harry," Destiny reminded him. "I can't change what Neville will do."
"Okay, well, can I spend more time with Neville?" Harry asked. "Not just my first year too, but rather all the time preferably. I regret not giving him more of a chance at closer friendship."
"Now we're talking," Destiny said, waving her hand once more. "There, now he's as close a friend to you as Ron and Hermione… you're now a group of four instead of a group of three… hey, here's some simulations where he goes under the cloak with you that night to snuggle the dragon. That way, only Draco gets caught out of bed that night."
"Fantastic!" Harry smiled.
"Anything else for that year?" Destiny asked.
"What about the troll incident? Could that have gone better?" Harry asked. "Like, it went well all things considered, but could it have gone better?"
"There are several ways you could have prevented Hermione from being in that bathroom, but that incident is why you became friends with Hermione," Destiny explained.
"Yeah, since we have control here, I'd prefer Ron and I still defeat the troll and save Hermione."
"You mean Ron, Neville, and you," Destiny said. "He's your close friend in this new timeline we're making."
"Oh, right, right… so, what can we do to make that incident play out differently?" Harry asked.
"Well, if I filter out all the instances where someone dies… here we go!" Destiny said, zooming in on one of the many simulations on the screen. "In this one you cast sparks up the troll's nose when you're on his back and your wand is stuck up his nose… you kill it. That's pretty cool."
"Sweet! Let's go with that," Harry grinned.
"Sure thing," Destiny said. "You earn a lot more house points in this simulation… oh shoot, the troll breaks Neville's wand in this simulation. Let me pick another one…"
"No, wait!" Harry interjected. "Neville used his father's wand for, like, five years. It wasn't a good fit for him and he got a lot better at spells when his grandmother got him a new wand. Leave it. If his wand is broken fighting a troll his grandmother will be so proud of him and she'll get him a new wand much sooner than before."
"You're totally right," Destiny said. "I'm looking ahead now and in all outcomes in seeing, he's much better at spells."
"How do you see that? I don't see it on the screen," Harry said.
"Oh, the screen is for you, Harry," Destiny said. "I can see thousands of possible futures at once all inside my head."
"Wicked," Harry smiled. "Okay, I can't think of anything else I'd do differently my first year. All in all, it was a good year."
"Let's move on to that summer. I can't change Dobby's behavior, remember. You're stuck not getting your mail I'm afraid."
"I do wish I could have moved in with the Weasleys," Harry sighed. "But I know Dibledore wanted my mother's protection to be refreshed every year so I had to keep going back to the Dursleys'…"
"Oh, you've moved in with the Weasleys a few times in your previous backsteps," Destiny said. "Molly really advocated for you and she convinced Dumbledore that your mental and physical health were much more important than your mother's protection. She and Arthur adopted you the summer after your first year."
"Oh my God, yes, please make that happen," Harry almost shouted with glee.
"Okay," Destiny said, screwing up her face as she waved her hands around again. "Here's how it happened in your past lives… your first evening at school you wrote Molly a thank you letter for her helping you get on the platform. This started regular correspondence between you and her. After she gave you the Weasley sweater for Christmas you were so touched that you opened up in your letters to her. You said you wish she was your mum because of how the Dursleys treated you. You told her everything. She convinced Dumbledore to allow you to live with her and you never went back to the Dursleys ever again. By the end of the summer after your first break year, she and Arthur had adopted you officially. Dumbledore helped get the paperwork expedited."
"That's amazing!" Harry smiled. "Can we fit all of that into the timeline we are crafting?"
"Already done," Destiny smiled. She then collapsed onto a white chair Harry hadn't noticed until that very moment.
"This is all very taxing on me," Destiny said. "We'll continue in a bit but I need to rest."
"Oh, okay," Harry said. He looked around for something to do as he waited on Destiny to be ready, but the room was barely perceivable. He did find another chair and he sat beside her, facing the screen still.
"I'll tell you what, Harry," Destiny said. "You can't experience tiredness or pain or hunger or anything like that here. You're just a soul right now… nothing more. But me… I'm alive and I can be tired, and that's what I am right now."
"Er… sorry," Harry began, but she waved him off.
"It's fine Harry, I just need to sleep," Destiny said. "Let me put our current timeline up on the screen and you can watch that while I go to the other room and nap for a bit."
"Oh, er… sure…" Harry said hesitantly.
"I'm sorry to leave you, Harry," Destiny said. "I'll be back before you know it." And Destiny opened another door Harry hadn't seen, walked through, and closed him onto the computer room alone.
Harry looked up at the big screen. There was now only one simulation playing. It took up the while screen and this time, it had volume. He watched himself happily leaving King's Cross station with the Weasleys and going to live with them at The Burrow.