Chapter IV:

Standing in the TVA's base of operations, a room nearly the size of the Great Hall, Harry's arms were still crossed in disbelief.

"So you're trying to tell us that there are evil versions of ourselves out there?"

"Variants, we call them." Kang corrected with a finger wag. "And yes, there are plenty! Not exactly great news for us, however. Your kind is definitely a tricky one, I must say."

"Our kind?" Wanda pronounced.

Kang's fingers pointed at her. "Yes, your kind. I'm surprised that you're surprised! Individuals that possess magical powers as strong as you two? Bad apples are inevitable, common even."

"If they're inevitable, then what's our purpose?" Harry asked. "You're saying that this will never end?"

"It's all part of my ongoing assessment of humanity. The likelihood of good and evil. There is a certain balance that should be struck, you see. Evil will always appear somewhere and persist, but eventually, it must be vanquished." Kang explained, waving at various monitors. "It's just that the problematic variants of yourselves like to cause more problems than I can allow."

Harry's mind was throwing a riot trying to comprehend everything. So many questions, so few answers. Evil variants of himself? The elder pacifist inside him sought the logic behind them, his maverick parts curious of their capabilities compared to his.

Wanda approached the computers and technicians. "And what about you, Kang? Are there multiple versions of you? The TVA?"

Harry could tell she was still cautious. He was too.

"There used to be." Kang smiled, eyes dangerous. "But I rose above them. Took control of every variant of myself for the greater good of the multiverse."

There were many reasons why Harry did not like the sound of that. Kang did not seem good as much as he appeared to be neutral gray. But perhaps that was necessary. It would be hypocritical for Harry to claim that he had never done anything of ill intent.

"So then, how does this work?" Harry stared at the screen dominating the room. "Why are we all watching this bundle of white lines move?"

It was the same white flow Kang showed them on his desk.

"For this, I will allow one of my agents to explain." Kang stepped aside, a rather unassuming man in a suit appearing in his place. "Harry, Wanda, I'd like you to meet Agent Mobius. Specialist in the investigation and analysis of dangerous time criminals."

"Hey there," Mobius greeted, extending a solid-feeling hand. "Looking forward to working with the two of you. Excited, even. I kept saying that the only way to stop these variants was with their own variants! About damn time somebody listened to me."

"Specialist in the investigation and analysis of dangerous time criminals sounds pretty specific." Harry commented.

"Well, when you got over a billion different departments, you kinda have to be." Mobius chuckled, rubbing his stache. "That's not hyperbole, by the way."

"A billion?" Wanda looked for Kang, only to find him gone.

Mobius shook his head, ushering them closer to where the technicians were sitting. "Big boss man tends to do that, just disappears. He's got quite a lot on his plate."

"Yeah, I guess he does." Harry muttered, head swiveling like an owl's. "I'm not sure I'm all that trusting of him."

"You'll warm up to him, he's not always the best at getting his point across. Lucky for you all, you now have the TVA's resident expert!" Mobius pointed at himself then at the big screen. "This being the TVA's command center, all the alerts from various happenings in the multiverse come here. Whenever a red line forms and branches from the main white line, that's an indication of a potential threat."

"An example of a potential threat being?" Wanda asked.

Mobius scratched the back of his neck. "Well, there was one time when a variant of yourself decided to backstab the Avengers at Sokovia and help Ultron in the end. I'm sure you can imagine how that turned out. That was quite the messy reset, let me tell you. Not every day you get to use that many reset charges."

Gauging Wanda's reaction, Harry concluded that that was a big one.

From a suit pocket, Mobius produced a device no bigger than an envelope. "These are called TemPads. They allow you to open Timedoors, identify variants and monitor the timeline you're currently in. Very important that you don't lose this. It makes a sticky situation even more sticky if you do."

Mobius tapped the device's screen, and a portal just like what the soldiers used appeared before them.

"Timedoors. Can open and close them whenever and wherever. They'll take you straight to the threatened timeline, and are programmed to always return you here, to the TVA."

Harry took the device as Mobius then handed Wanda what looked like grenades. "These are reset charges. Once you've neutralized the variant, you can use one of these to revert everything they did."

Wanda's complexion was puzzling. "Neutralize?"

"Whatever it is you guys do to stop them." Said Mobius with a shrug. "Once you do that, these will reset that portion of the timeline to before the event occurred."

Harry's brow knotted. "And what happens to the variant? What would stop them from doing it again?"

"The reset charges will alter their memories as well. Everything will return to before the event, with the variant presumably acting differently now."

Wanda studied the charges, floating them above the palm of her hand. "So… why didn't they work before?"

"Because your variants kept killing our agents before they could do anything."

"Killed?" Harry said.

"I did say these variants of yours were evil, did I not?" Mobius rubbed his hands eagerly. "Which is why you two are here!"

Scarlet filled Wanda's pupils briefly. "Why those soldiers, why Kang showed up in my world."

"That's correct, bingo Wanda!" Mobius winked. "Everything we've tried to stop these variants has failed."

"And what makes you, made Kang think that we can?" She asked.

"There was a case I dealt with in the past that I handled in a similar matter. It was my idea, of course I had to get it approved, but I'd like to think that it was because of me we got those variants under control."

Harry's lips straightened. "And it worked?"

"To some extent, yeah, a few hiccups here in there," Mobius knocked his hand against a wooden desk. "But it worked out in the end, just like this one will!"

Harry glossed over the words with a wave. "And again, what's so bad about letting these… evil versions of ourselves be evil?" Harry found it childish to attribute the word evil to it. "Why can't we just let them be?"

"If we leave these variants be, there is great certainty that they will cause the end of their entire timeline. And if an entire timeline simply disappears from existence, that'll affect the others around it, and so on. It's like a snowball down a mountain. The entire multiverse is interconnected, like a spider's web."

Sitting down at an available desk, Mobius pulled up graphics on a computer to help explain.

"But do we have to use them?" Harry said, pointing to the charges. "Because changing everything about a timeline, about a variant of myself, that doesn't seem right."

He looked for Wanda to back him up, but she was hesitant to do so.

Mobius picked up a clipboard from the desk. "If you don't use these charges, you're entertaining the unlikely possibility that you're able to change your variant's mindset, without resetting them. Allowing them to keep all their memories. All their bad ones."

"Yes, that'd be my first option, Mobius."

"You must really love yourself, huh?"

Harry scowled. "If that's what you'd call it. I believe that everybody deserves second chances. Used that methodology my entire life. Why wouldn't I apply that to a variant of myself? That's why you brought us here, no? To help stop them."

"Fair enough." The agent's smile fell into a frown. "And what about you, Wanda? What's your opinion on the matter."

"Variants of myself." She muttered. Harry could feel the gears moving inside her head. "I'm not quite over that."

"I know it's a lot to take in at once." Mobius offered them an apologetic smile. "There's a lot of risks involved here, you know. These variants aren't throwing these cataclysmic multiversal events like a birthday party."

"I understand that, but I wouldn't want my memories altered completely." Harry ruffled his hair.

What the hell was this TVA freakshow? Everything in the past however-so-many hours felt like a fever dream. The other day he was an old man for Merlin's sake.

"There's real malice right here, real evil. They may look like you, talk like you, but their minds are very different from yours." Mobius emphasized. "Resetting is the safest option. Though, I'm open to anything as long as y'all don't get me fired." Mobius flashed two thumbs-up. "I'm kind of a rule-breaker myself, just don't tell Ms. Renslayer."

"Ms. Renslayer?" Harry asked.

"Ravonna Renslayer, my boss. Feisty one, she is, but she's not yours to worry about. I'd reckon you'll probably never see her, she's way too busy with other things." The last of Mobius' words came out softer than the first.

Wanda floated the charges again, traces of her scarlet interacting with the metal. "What would get you fired?"

Mobius whipped out a pen and began writing something. "If you end the multiverse, for starters."

-Ω-

Wanda stared out over a balcony, absorbing the TVA's labyrinth-like layout. From her vantage point, she observed the movement of ships, zipping in and out of buildings. Their operators appeared as black blips, no bigger than a speck of dust, insignificant to their surrounding's golden facade.

Her fingertips rattled against the railing, accompanied by the sound of approaching footsteps.

"You're thinking." Harry stated, appearing by her side.

"And?"

"Sometimes thinking too much can lead you astray."

Wanda turned to the man, still donning his wizarding robes. "What would you know about that?"

"More than you'd guess." He shrugged.

"Do you guess yourself wise?" She asked, as her gaze returned to the more interesting view.

"Well, considering that by technicality I've got the brains of a seventy and twenty-year-old, maybe?"

Wanda laughed. "I can sense your internal conflict from here."

"It's at the very least odd, I'd reckon." Harry did not seem uncomfortable with the fact. "Though many strange things have happened to me."

"I don't doubt that."

In silence for a moment, they both watched the happenings below them. The smallest of parts moving around, contributing to something more significant than Wanda ever thought possible.

With a flick of the wrist, she created a scarlet droplet in the air. "What do you think of this place?"

Harry, fiddling with his wand, raised his chin. "I've never been one for serving institutions, organizations and such. Especially those that come out of nowhere, run by people like Kang, who granted we don't even really know yet."

"All we know is that we're here to save the multiverse."

"And that if we weren't here, there might not be any others who can." Harry finished. "I'll be honest with you, Wanda. I'm surprised you accepted Kang's offer. This isn't my thing, but it for sure doesn't seem like yours at all.

With another flick of the wrist, Wanda let the droplet fall. "I created my alternate reality, Westview, to escape this life, yes. And I can return to it whenever I want. But the multiverse… holds endless opportunities within it."

"You said earlier to Kang that you knew about the multiverse before." With his wand, Harry created his own falling droplets. "Are you telling me you hope to gain something out of all of this?"

Wanda's eyes met his. "I don't know exactly." She admitted. "But the energy surrounding this place is something I've never felt before. I can't seem to place it anywhere."

"I can agree with you there. Whatever they did to make this place was bloody brilliant. It doesn't seem real at all." Harry's stare intensified, which she found to be more unsettling than comfortable. "Is it just me, or does it feel like we've known each other for either fifteen minutes or fifteen lifetimes."

"That happens when you peer into another's mind." Wanda said, her lips thinning as she lifted her arms. "Don't think that you know me though, Harry. I promise you that you don't."

-Ω-

"Alright, we got a red line right here! Potential threat!" Mobius exclaimed, the same alert popping up on Harry's TemPad. "Variant 932 of Harry James Potter has been found to have caused a sequence violation. Lucky you, Harry! You get to go after yourself first!"

"Do we know what the sequence violation is?" Wanda asked. "What they've done?"

"You won't know until you get in there." Mobius answered as a Timedoor appeared between them. "You guys gotta act fast, it doesn't take long for these threats to become a real pain in everybody's ass."

Harry exhaled, his heart ticking about the prospect of facing himself. "We have a time limit?"

Mobius' excitement was way off the charts now, every limb of his jittering. "It's not really a definitive one, but let's just say that you don't want to leave a fork in the microwave for too long."

Wanda nodded at Harry, scarlet energy already in her hands. "Best to be prepared for anything, no?"

"I guess so." He muttered, keeping his wand at the ready, slipping the TemPad into the folds of his robes.

If Harry had to guess, he may be resorting to a variety of combat mediums in the not-so-distant future. Both light and dark.

"Best of luck out there, you two." Mobius smiled. "And remember, try not to get me fired."

Author's Note:

Thanks for the feedback! Tried my best to capture Mobius' (Owen Wilson) persona. Hella action next chapter :)