AN: Do not talk about the elections to me, but please enjoy this story. It was difficult to write the first time and even more difficult to the second.
oOo
"I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry. You're not a bad person. You're a very good person, who bad things have happened to."
-Sirius Black.
Chapter 13 - When You Die
Harry had been so desprate to talk to Sirius, he forgot that Sirius didn't know everything.
Talking to Flitwick had been somewhat easier because he was, in a sense, a stranger. If Flitwick didn't believe him or was disappointed in him, then, well, it didn't really matter. It wasn't that Harry didn't care what his professor thought, but Sirius was family.
Seeing his indecision, Sirius suggested he take a shower while Sirius made them some hot chocolate.
Harry lingered in the warmth of that shower, attempting and failing to organize his thoughts.
He knew he needed to tell him everything, but that didn't make him less afraid.
He did feel better after the shower. He used the cleaning charm Hermonie had taught him on his pajamas. He was able to make it to the kitchen without waking any portraits.
Sirius had seat next to the fire and hot chocolate waiting for him.
Wonderful, rich, extra bar of chocolate, hot chocolate, that seemed to warm him from the inside out.
"What's been happening, Harry?" Sirius asked.
He felt his shoulders round as hunched over his mug. Briefly, Harry thought of hiding, of starting with the dream but there was no way to explain the dream without explaining the whole story.
Harry took a deep breath, "Sirius, what do you think happens to you when you die?"
Sirius blinked, "I'm - I don't know, but I would like to think we join our loved ones."
"I didn't," Harry said hollowly. "Not when Voldemort struck me with the killing curse the first time and not the second time either."
Sirius frowned, "You're going to have to run that by me again. You remember that night?"
Harry sighed, "I have had dreams about that night my entire life. I remember from my father telling Lily to run, I remember mom begging for my life with Voldemort, I remember him giving her an opportunity to step aside, and her dying for me. I saw pieces of it my entire life, but I wasn't able to piece it together until I attacked by a dementor in the third year on the train."
"I had no idea," Sirius said sadly. "What do you mean you remember what happened after you were hit by the killing curse? Twice, I might add."
Harry smiled without humour, "I remember. At least, I remember what happens when you don't pass on to the next adventure."
The last he could not see without some bitterness.
Sirius hesitated, "Do you… do you want to talk about it?"
Harry took in a deep breath before he began with, "I had my first occlumency lesson with Snape last week. When he dug into my mind… I remembered. I skipped this week's lesson."
"You remembered being hit by the killing curse?" Sirius asked to clarify.
"I remember dying and coming back to life and that space in between."
"What did you see?"
"The space in-between life and death, for me, was filled with white mist. The first time, I was sitting on the couch downstairs with my parents. Dad told me to live and Mum told me she loved me. Then I was coming back… and it was… it was pain. It hurt so much I don't know what to compare it to. It was so painful that it almost wasn't a physical sensation. The pain in my scar was secondary."
Sirius's face was calm but his eyes were glassy with suppressed emotions. "But this happened to you twice?"
"The second time it was Dumbledore who greeted me in the white mist. We were in King's Cross. He gave me choice of whether to move on to see my parents again or return," Harry answered. He took a few bracing gulps of hot chocolate before admitting, "And I woke up three years into the past."
Sirius blinked, repeatedly. He also took a few gulps of his hot chocolate, which made him think that, perhaps, Sirius's had more than just chocolate. "You time travelled?"
"Yes. I woke up on the day of the Final Task. I thought I was hallucinating. If I hadn't thought that, maybe I would have caught Wormtail."
"You time travelled?" Sirius asked again.
"Yes."
There was a long pause, "So you're what seventeen years old?"
"Eighteen, I think," Harry answered then shook his head. "I mean I remember those years, but–" he gestured to himself. "I'm in this body. It's harder than I remember it being, dealing with my emotions. I'm so easily overwhelmed. I was in a war and I handled that better than a stupid dream."
"Pruberty isn't anything anyone wants to relive twice," Sirius remarked though he looked like he was in over his head.
"Do you want me to tell you what I've gone through since coming back in time or my original timeline?" Harry asked.
Sirius sucked in a breath, held till he nearly turned blue then let it out in a gust. "I guess anything is possible with magic," he remarked. "Let's talk about your original timeline. That's where your nightmares are coming from, right? You said you fought in the upcoming war."
Harry gripped his mug a little tighter, "Yeah."
"Then start where the two lines split. What happened the first time you went through the Final Task?"
So Harry told him.
He detailed Cedric's death, the ceremony that brought No-Nose back to full strength.
Fifth year was somehow even more difficult to describe.
At least, they were more difficult to describe to Sirius.
Harry was still embarrassed by how easily he had been duped by the nightmares. How the pain in his scar and the newspapers had driven him mad. How Umbridge setting dementors on him and made everyone's lives at Hogwarts a misery.
Harry couldn't explain Dumbledore's distance nor the Occlumency lessons, without emotion. Though he allowed that he had overstepped looking into Snape's memories and his failure in forgetting the mirror shard.
It was easier to speak about the Death Eaters breaking out of prison and Nagini attacking Mr. Weasley.
The hardest was explaining exactly how the trap Voldemort set had played out, and how Harry had taken his classmates into a battle at the Ministry of Magic, which had ulitmatelySirius dying.
"It was my fault."
"It was not your fault," Sirius said firmly. "Damn Bellatrix. I got cocky and failed you. That most certainly was not your fault."
"But there were a million things I could have done, Sirius," Harry said, setting aside his now empty mug.
"Harry, unless you personally take a rock and smash my skull in, my death will never be your fault. Even if you killed me, I would imagine that you would probably a justified cause."
"You didn't deserve to die," Harry stressed.
"I'm the reason your parents were murdered. The reason you were raised by the Dursleys."
"No!" Harry exclaimed. "No, you weren't! If Trelawney hadn't made the stupid prophecy, if Snape hadn't overheard it, if Pettigrew wasn't an evil bastard, if- If a million things! It isn't your fault my parents died."
"Alright," Sirius said with suspicious ease.
It was Harry's turn to blink in surprised confusion, "Just like that?"
"I'll make you a deal. I will never say out loud, and I will attempt not to think, that I am the reason my best friend and his wife died. I will not say that I am the reason James's son was left to fend himself, with relatives who didn't love him as they should, if you accept that by the same reasoning you just gave me that my death was not–and will never be–your fault."
Harry glared at him, "And what? we chant it enough times and we start to believe it?"
"Stranger things have happened," Sirius pointed out.
Harry sighed, exhaustion swamping as continued with his story. In doing so, he was proved that, indeed, stranger things had happened. For instance, Dumbledore taking Harry Horcrux hunting and Snape being a triple agent.
"Snape killed Dumbledore?" Sirius breathed, shocked.
"Dumbledore was already dying," Harry explained. "He strong-armed Snape into shortening it. Snape saved Draco Malfoy from becoming a murderer."
Sirius nodded, "He's a cranky bastard but he didn't turn out completely rotten, I suppose. Not that I can say I helped him be a better person at all."
Harry snorted, "I think it's safe to say Snape wasn't sad to see you go."
"And this all would have happened next year?"
Harry nodded.
"How are you going to keep this from Snape during your Occlumency lessons?" Sirius asked.
"I have no idea, and aside from Flitwick, you are the only person who knows that I time travelled."
Sirius raised his brows, "You really haven't said anything to Ron or Hermione?"
"How can I!?" Harry exploded, throwing his hands up. "What am I supposed to tell them? 'Hey best friends, I am a time traveller and we went through hell together. Hermoine was tortured, Ron lost a brother, and Hogwarts was–'"
He words got stuck in his throat as images of broken walls and broken bodies flashed through his mind's eye."
"Who's to say they wouldn't understand?" Sirius questioned.
"Sirius, we lived in a tent for months because we were on the most wanted list.
"Hermione erased her parents' memories of herself and shipped them to Australia. I don't want her to have to think of that. I don't ever want her to be put in a position where that would ever occur to her or for that to be necessary," Harry said in rush and once he started, he couldn't stop.
"When we got caught, Bellatrix carved 'mudblood' into Hermione's arm with a cursed blade. I don't want her to know that. I don't want to see her face when her faith in the concept of laws and right and wrong is destroyed.
"Even if I did tell her it would just be giving her pain for no reason because she will never be the person who lived through those things with me. I miss that person but I would give almost anything to ensure she never has to live through that again, that she never has to become that person.
"Ron deserted us because of that stupid locket. He came back but we… all of us were so close to breaking," Harry's voice cracked. He didn't know at what point he had stood, but he was on his feet, his hands shaking.
"Harry…"
Harry fell back in his seat, "I can't tell them, Sirius. I can't tell them. Not until they have to know, but if I've been given this chance to change things… I don't want to tell them."
Sirius nodded.
Harry sat back down.
There was an awkward silence.
Has it stretched, Harry blurted, "We robbed Gringotts."
"You robbed Gringotts?" Sirius asked, seeming both astonished and proud. "Successfully?"
Harry nodded, "Yep. It was Bellatrix's vault actually. We rode out of the bank on the dragon they keep down there."
Sirius smiled, "Every time I think I couldn't be prouder of you, you out do yourself."
Harry flinched, despite all that he had told Sirius already, he couldn't quite bring himself to admit to using the Imperius Curse to manage the bank robbing.
"Harry?" Sirius prompted
"I have done a lot of bad things," he said, voice weak.
"You were in a war, Harry, sometimes the right thing to do isn't the ethical thing to do."
"I'm sure that's what the Death Eaters tell themselves," Harry said, shoulders slumping.
"A lot of good people die in war because they do nothing. An ethical death is still dead. In war, it's a choice of who dies, and I'd rather a soldier who's protecting innocense survive than terrorist who kills children continue on."
"The final battle was fought on the Hogwarts's grounds after a year of students being tortured and torturing one another. A lot of them died, Sirius. Whatever we did, it wasn't enough."
"Harry…"
"I've been thinking it over for months and it all seems so silly. Everything we did was so small in the face of it. Dumbledore and Voldemort playing chess with our lives. Years of being told that I was only a child and should let the adults take care of it, then two years of everyone depending on me. Two years of sorrow and mayhem and we were too late to save anyone. Too late to help anyone!
"I am just one person and I was only important because the Dark Lord and Dumbledore were obsessed with me. But really, I was just such a small voice in the greater horror of it all. The best thing I did for anyone was die."
Sirius shook his head, "I don't understand that and I refuse to believe that could ever be true."
"I was one of his Horcrux. One of his anchors. In order for him to be defeated, then I had to die."
"That is not true," Sirius said obstinately. "Harry, you have done more than anyone should have ever asked of you. Voldemort is a madman, his actions are inexcusable. Dumbledore is almost equally wrong in putting that burden on you."
"Yet if I hadn't been around, Voldemort wouldn't have come back."
Sirius looked angry, "If it wasn't for you he would have won the first war. Had Lily never had you, she may have never found a way to fight him off."
"So you don't think I was a supernatural baby?"
Sirius shook his head, "Prongslet, you were a beautiful, beloved child of two of the very bravest people who did their best to care for you in a war."
"I wish they hadn't died for me."
Sirius sighed, and looking twice his age, he said, "We would have died a thousand times over to see you safe."
"You didn't know then?" Harry asked. "You didn't know that Dumbledore was grooming me to be a martyr?"
Sirius shook his head, "Explain."
"You've heard of the Deathly Hallows?"
"The children's story?"
Harry shrugged, "My dad's cloak is the invisibility cloak."
Sirius's eyes widened, "That's… that's impossible."
"I tell you I'm a time traveller and the Hallows is where you draw the line?"
Sirius expression turned sheepish, "Sorry, you're right. I believe you, it's just that is a very old children's book. I sure hope Rabbity-Rabbity isn't real." His humour was forced and fell flat.
"Dumbledore's wand is the Death Stick and the ring that was killing him, the stone set into the Gaunt ring was the Resurrection Stone."
"He had all three Hallows," Sirius stated.
"Snape died because of the Elder Wand. Voldemort set Nagini on him."
"Did he know he was the traitor?"
"No, Voldemort thought he was loyal until the last. Snape died in my arms and the last thing he did was give me his memories," Harry paused, not wanting to cause more conflict.
He saw only compassion on his godfather's face as he said, "You don't have to tell me this part."
"I need to tell you, I think," Harry decided. "I haven't told Flitwick but he doesn't hate the man like you and I do."
Sirius sighed, "You are going to tell me why Dumbledore trusted the old bat, aren't you?"
Harry smiled sadly, explaining the tragedy of teenager who was led down a dark road.
"He loved her," Sirius said after Harry finished explained he had seen in Snape's memories.
"He saved my life over and over again for her. He taught school children which he hates, and played spy and Dumbledore's lap dog and died for love of her."
oOo
"That doesn't exactly excuse him for the things he's done," Sirius remarked. He had known most of what Harry had told him about Snape and he didn't particularly love the sympathy Harry seemed to have for the man.
"He was set up to fail," Harry said, as if that was a justification.
Sirius felt extremely overwhelmed at this point. They had been talking for hours, and that was is only excuse for not connecting the dots together sooner. "Did- did Dumbledore ask you to sacrifice yourself to Voldemort?"
Harry nodded, "I didn't say goodbye to Ron and Hermione."
"No, Harry, no," Sirius moaned. "Tell me you didn't. Tell me you didn't give up the fight."
"I never even raised my wand."
"Why would you do that!? What did you think it would accomplish?"
"Neither can live while-"
"Damn the prophecy!" Sirius shouted, standing up. "What made you think dying would do anyone any good!?"
"There was a piece of Voldemort's soul anchored inside me."
"You said that, but did you try anything else!? Harry, the Dark Arts are not a 'one solution solves all.' There are so many things you could have tried before allowing someone to kill you!"
Sirius didn't mean to shout, but he couldn't suppress his fear, his sorrow for what his godson had gone through. It broke his heart to think that his Harry, that James and Lily's son would think–even for a moment–that he was worth more dead than alive.
"Dumbledore gave me the Resurrection Stone and you and Mum and Dad and Remus were there. Dad and Mum were proud of me, Remus was sorry for orphaning his son–my godson by the way who I left behind too–, and you, you said–"
Sirius felt his heart constrict, "What did I say, Harry? What did the shade who stole my appearance and my voice say?"
oOo
Harry shut his eyes unable to face Sirius as he repeated the words that had given him the courage to sacrifice it all -sacrifice himself. "I asked if it would hurt, if it would hurt to die and you said-" He had to swallow before finishing, "You said it was quicker and easier than falling asleep."
Sirius knelt by his chair and took his hand in both of his. His blue eyes held his unwaveringly, "You listen to me, my son, your parents and I love you. We would never wish you harm, we would never ask you to die."
"My death could have saved a lot of people."
"Bullshit," Sirius snapped, squeezing Harry's hands tighter. "I don't care what you saw with that cursed stone, I would never have encouraged you to give up your life. I would have told you to rage, I would have told you to run and fight another day. I would have told you that your time hadn't come yet, that your time would never come until you had exhausted all other options and even then I would have told you to continue to fight.
"There are things worth dying for, things worth sacrificing, but offering your life up to a madman for an empty promise..."
Harry shook his head and tried to pull his hands out of Sirius's grip but Sirius held on.
"It wasn't an empty promise."
"Was anything else tried? Did anyone discuss what other things could have been tried? Dumbledore took the easy way out. You know that, don't you?" Sirius asked, his eyes kind, his words demanding.
"Sirius don't-"
"Say it, Harry."
"Dumbledore-"
"Albus Dumbledore was wrong."
"Sirius please sto-"
"Say it out loud, Harry. You need to hear yourself say it."
Harry couldn't stop the tears that trailed down his face. "I thought it was the only option. There were so many, too many who had died. I just wanted it to stop, I just wanted it to end."
"Did you want to die?" Sirius asked gently.
"No, no, I was terrified but I thought, I thought-" Harry stuttered.
Sirius pulled him into a hug.
Harry choked on a sob. "I thought it would make- that I would make a difference. I thought my death would give everyone else a chance to live and I was willing to die for them. I was just one person, I didn't matter."
"Yes, you do matter, Harry, yes you do. You will always matter. There is no life that is equitable to another's. Your parents died fighting for you, but they would still have been fighting if they hadn't had you. Your mother died for you because she couldn't have lived in a world without you. She couldn't have been Lily Potter, your mother, if she had stepped aside to let you be murdered before her eyes."
"I died because- I died because I loved them all, everyone at this school, I died so they could have a chance too."
"You believed that by dying that your single death would have stopped Voldemort," Sirius repeated back to him.
Both reasonings were sound.
Either dying for the greater good, dying so others might have a chance, or that by dying Harry hadn't stopped Voldemort in the slightest. If Voldemort had lived and Harry was dead then Voldemort would have kept killing.
Harry hadn't killed Nagini and Dumbledore was dead, who was there that could have withstood the Dark Lord?
Hermione? But Hermione, as brilliant as she was no more a match for Voldemort.
"I died for nothing," Harry said brokenly.
"No, Harry, you died because every person that should have stood up for you, every adult that should have been there for you made you feel that you had no worth. I loved you and I failed you. You loved Dumbledore and he not only died on you but told you to die for everyone else. At your weakest, at your most courageous, you were given a weapon that made you believe that the people who had loved you most in this world wanted you dead."
Harry shattered, he slid off his chair fully into Sirius's embrace and fell apart. Crying, he lost any sense of composure.
He had tried so hard, he had done everything asked of him and in the end thrown away his life. The life his parents had given him, the one Sirius had died fighting to protect.
Harry buried his face into Sirius's robes and sobbed, giving voice to the fear and the pain and the grief that had been eating away at his soul.
Sirius rubbed his back, murmuring words of comfort and after an endless space of time, Harry finally heard the words Sirius was saying, "You're not too late. We're alive, Harry, we're alive."
Harry closed his eyes and clung to that thought. The thought that they were alive and where there was life there was hope.
oOo
Harry awoke the next morning in a bed, after finding his glasses on the bedside table he recognized the room as Regulus's. He had no idea how he had gotten here. He looked around and though Grimmauld Place was cleaner in this timeline, this room was still the most pristine.
Harry found Sirius still awake, staring into the embers of the kitchen fireplace, lost in thought.
"Your little brother died fighting by the way," Harry croaked.
"Hmmm?" Sirius asked, his blue-grey eyes had darkened to a deep charcoal grey.
"Slytherin's Locket, Regulus found out what it was and died getting it to Kreacher. That's how he betrayed the Death Eaters."
Sirius was quiet, gaze going distant again, "Where are the Horcruxes now?
"When I came back in time I destroyed them. All of them. The one in my scar didn't survive the trip through time continuums," Harry said, retaking his seat from the night before.
"Even the one in Gringotts?"
"Dobby got that one."
"The house-elf?" Sirius grinned, "Oh I would love to tell my dear cousin that."
"Sirius?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"Are you mad at me for getting myself killed?"
A beat.
Sirius met his gaze, "Yes, I am angry, I think I will always be angry that you felt that was your only option, but I understand why you did it."
Harry bit his lip, "Do you forgive me?"
Sirius smiled at him, "Of course, I do. Though, I would prefer you never willingly let yourself get killed again. Please."
"I don't want to die again. Not like that."
There was a long beat of silence.
Harry broke that moment by asking, "Do you forgive yourself?"
Sirius took in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let it go. "It doesn't help us, to live in the past."
"Doesn't mean we can escape it."
"We have to learn to live, you and I. We have to learn to move forward. This life, well, you gave us a second chance."
Harry shook his head, "I don't know what you mean?"
"Voldemort is on the run. You destroyed all his soul fragments. You gave us a second chance, a real chance. Let's not waste it."
"So where do we go from here?" Harry asked.
"Well, I think you need a day, well probably a year off, but I think I can steal you for a few days without causing too much trouble."
Harry felt his insides warm. "What do you have in mind?"
"Have you ever been to Italy?"
Harry shook his head.
Sirius grinned,"I think we are in need of a harty breakfast and they have the great food. Plus, I bet it's sunny there."
"But you're-"
Sirius held up a finger and pulled out his wand. A few flicks and the dark haired, moustached man in front of him was now blonde, tanned, clean-shaven, and had turquoise blue eyes. He pulled out a hair tie and pulled his hair back in a ponytail.
"Transfiguration was always my best subject," Sirius wagging his pale eyebrows. "What do you think?"
Harry stared, "Why did you never do that before?"
"Because there are ways, rather simple ways to break these enchantments. But if we stick to muggle Italy it shouldn't be a problem."
Harry grinned. Yeah, he had been through some shit. But Sirius was absolutely right.
They were alive and there was nothing stopping them from taking this second chance at a better present. A better future.
A better life.
oOo
AN: Thoughts, Yangtze finless porpoise, or feedback, pretty please?