Chapter Text
December 24th, 1997:
It’s strange, to be standing in the shell of a home that was once his.
Well, to say it had ever been his is a bit of a stretch. He certainly didn’t have any memories of the place, but for the first year and a half of his life, Harry Potter had lived here.
But does that make it his? He’s not sure it’s fair to say that a baby could reasonably have a claim over anything, much less an entire house.
Then again, the other inhabitants of the home are long dead, and no one has come or gone since, so it’s not like the abandoned house in Godric’s Hollow could reasonably belong to anyone else– in fact, Harry was pretty sure that the property is legally his.
He supposes it doesn’t matter either way. He and Hermoine aren’t exactly planning on sticking around for very long, and he doesn’t want to waste any more time concerning himself with matters of ownership.
The two of them certainly have more important things to be worrying about– namely, searching for the sword of Gryffindor.
The odds of it actually being stashed somewhere in the decaying Potter home are quite low, but they had passed it on their way to Bathilda Bagshot’s, and Harry must’ve stared at the entryway for a few moments too long, because Hermione’s face had gone tight with pity.
She had been the one to suggest they go in, an act Harry suspected was done out of some misplaced idea of Christmas spirit.
Or maybe she’s just a good friend, who misses Ron just as much as you do and is trying to fill the gap however she can. Or, you complete arsehole, maybe it’s the first Christmas she’s spent without her parents, and she doesn’t know how to deal with it.
Harry winces at the thought. He really ought to be kinder to her, especially considering all she’s done for him.
He exhales heavily, forcing himself to focus back on his task. He’s been standing in this open doorway for too long, and he knows it’s time to keep moving. He steps forward lightly, the quiet thud of his foot on the carpeted floor seeming to echo through the room.
The space is achingly familiar, although it’s the first time he’s seeing it from this perspective. He hasn’t seen it at all since the dementors of his third year, but he still knows exactly what the room would look like if he was small enough to fit against the crib on the far wall.
The room is smaller than it seemed in those visions, his seventeen year old body taking up much more space than his infant one did.
The walls are a light blue colour, and above the crib, there's several stickers pressed on the wall, dirty and peeling with age. There’s a plush rocking chair in the corner, a stack of books right next to it. The other corner hosts a changing table, there's an overturned bin of toys on the floor in front of the crib, and a children’s-sized pumpkin costume hanging on the door handle.
If not for the thick layer of dust coating the room, Harry could almost believe that a normal family lives here, and that they’ll be back home in just a few minutes.
It’s a room stopped in time, and Harry feels like an intruder within a sacred space.
Still, he keeps moving, walking towards the crib almost mechanically.
As he steps over the toys on the floor, he hysterically wonders if Voldemort had to do the same.
He reaches the crib, painfully aware that he is in the exact spot his mother once stood.
He wonders, distantly, if when Lily Evans fell to the floor, dead, her body landed on the toys at his feet.
The thought is morbid in a degree that’s unusual even for him, but he finds himself unable to chase it away. Ridiculously, he hopes it didn’t happen like that. Not that it would’ve made much of a difference.
He hears someone walking down the hall, but doesn’t worry. He knows Hermione’s footsteps quite well at this point, and is for once present enough in his own body to know it’s her.
Her quiet gasp from the doorway confirms it, and within moments, she’s by his side. “Oh, Harry.” She whispers, devastation thick in her voice. She rests her hand on his arm, and it’s then that he realises he’s crying.
The reality of it hits him all at once– the life he could’ve had, if everything had gone right. The people who lived here, his parents, so young, just a few years older than he is now, betrayed by their best friend and struck down mercissely in their own home.
And for what?
Voldemort’s still alive, the war is still on, and Harry will just get to die at seventeen instead of at one.
He reaches forward to grip the crib, a last ditch attempt to steady himself against the rush of anger and despair ripping through his soul. He touches it, and for a moment, everything is still.
Then, there’s a rushing of wind and his body is being twisted and yanked and stretched, the room is spinning around him and Hermione’s hand on his arm is the only thing that remains constant, and he’s dizzy and sick and frightened and–
Standing in front of the crib again.
The room is spinning around him, but he’s coherent enough that notices the stickers on the wall are no longer peeling off the wall, but as fresh as they might’ve been the day they were stuck on. He has just enough time for it to cross his mind that that’s rather strange, before a woman’s voice cries out behind him and everything goes dark.
……
“--call Moody?”
“--don’t have the mark, but–”
“--standing over Harry’s crib, for merlin’s–!”
“--almost looks like–”
“--completely ridiculous–”
“--wait for them to wake up.”
……
The voices, some louder than others, filter around Harry for quite some time, before eventually falling silent, evidently coming to an agreement about… whatever they were fighting over.
And what were they fighting over?
Harry’s memory is pretty fuzzy, but he doesn’t remember being involved in any arguments since Ron left, but perhaps something had happened?
He doesn’t recognize the voices either, but one of them had mentioned Moody, so they might be Aurors, but what would a group of Aurors be discussing so passionately?
Harry furrows his brow, frustrated at his inability to remember anything beyond…
Godric’s Hollow.
His eyes snap open, his heartbeat suddenly going wild in his chest. He’s sitting on what he recognizes to be the couch in the sitting room of Godric’s Hollow.
It seems… different, though. Newer, less dusty.
If the sudden cleanliness isn’t enough of a warning signal, the full body bind he’s newly trapped in undoubtedly is.
This isn’t right.
No one was supposed to know they were here, no one could’ve known they were here, unless they had been seen, and even still, they would’ve had to have been recognized, which–
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
Harry looks up quickly. In his panic, he hadn’t heard anyone approaching, and the voice had come from right in front of him.
A woman walks into the room, sitting down carefully on the coffee table in front of him. If Harry didn’t know better, he would think her to be relatively unassuming– her blonde hair is cut into a slightly dated shaggy almost-mullet, and she’s dressed in a relatively normal sweater and jeans.
Normal, that is, except for the fact that the sweater has a massive, cartoonish-looking stag on it. The animal has ornaments dangling from its antlers, and there’s a bright red bell sewn onto where its nose should be.
It would almost be enough to make Harry laugh, if it weren’t for the fact that the woman’s wand is pointed directly at him.
“Who are you?” He asks dumbly.
There’s a nagging sensation in the back of his mind, something poking at him that tells him he should recognize her, but whatever memory she exists in is just out of reach.
The woman snorts, as if it was ridiculous of him to even ask. “Took the question right out of my mouth, mate.” She responds, smiling sardonically.
Harry blinks in surprise.
He doesn’t think of himself as a vain person, not really. The whole chosen one thing is annoying at best and outright dangerous at worst, and it’s been a simple fact for him ever since he was eleven that it’s impossible to go anywhere without being recognized.
That’s what makes her question so strange– he knows his scar is visible right now, and as far as he knows, there’s not a single soul in the wizarding world that doesn’t recognize it.
The woman stares at him expectantly, as if she’s truly waiting for the answer. Harry continues to stare at her, silently debating how likely she is to believe him if he lies, when another woman walks into the room.
It's another person Harry fails to recognize. She’s dark skinned and tall, her hair falling down her back in countless small braids. She’s dressed similarly to the blonde woman, although her sweater is a simple green with no cartoonish reindeer in sight. “The girl’s awake.” She says, and Harry freezes.
When he had woken up alone, he had hoped that it meant Hermione had somehow gotten away. Clearly, though, he was wrong, as the muffled sound of her voice suddenly rang out from the wall behind him. It’s impossible for him to make out what she’s saying, but the distress in her tone is clear, and it sets Harry’s nerves on fire.
“What are you doing to her?” He demands, straining against the curse holding him still. His heartbeat is deafening in his ears, and he strains to hear more from the other room. Hermoine’s gone quiet, though, and that only heightens Harry’s anxiety.
If something’s happened to Hermione because of him– because he had stared longingly at the door for a second too long and she was too kind to let it go– he could never forgive himself.
The two women exchange a glance, and there’s something knowing about it that Harry despises. “I swear to merlin, if you hurt her, I’ll–”
The blonde woman leans forward slightly, her body lax with condescending curiosity. “You’ll what? You’re in a full body bind, and besides, the first thing we did was take your wand. Do you think we’re stupid?”
“I think that I was raised by muggles, you shite. That there are loads of ways to hurt someone without using magic.” Harry snarls, his body thrumming with the effort of his increasingly desperate attempts to move.
The blonde leans back in surprise, the bell on her sweater jingling quietly as she does so.
The woman with the braids, who has remained quite silent up to this point, blinks at him, stunned. “You… were raised by muggles?” She repeats slowly, her brows furrowing in obvious confusion.
Harry twitches, his anger only continuing to rise. “That is what I’ve just said, isn’t it?”
Both women silently stare at him for a long moment, before the one in the stag sweater speaks again. “And you admit that?”
Harry feels like someone must be playing some sort of joke on him. The entire wizarding world knows he was raised by muggles– it had been rather impossible to keep secret after Rita Skeeter had seen him in Diagon Alley with Hagrid.
“For merlin’s sake, I just have! Do you need me to say it again?” He snaps, finally losing his patience.
Just then, a very tall man walks into the room, silencing all of its inhabitants with his arrival. “Oh, please do, maybe the rest of the street would like to hear it as well.” He says sarcastically, acting as if there’s nothing unusual about the situation.
And Harry knows that voice.
He trails his eyes up the man’s body and realises abruptly that he knows that face , too.
The lines around his eyes and on his forehead have smoothed out a fair amount, and the dark circles under his eyes have faded to a dull purple rather than being almost black, but it is him, Harry’s certain.
“Professor Lupin?” He blurts, unable to contain his shock, if not put somewhat at easy by the man’s appearance. Harry doesn’t understand why he’s here at all, considering the last time he had seen him, Tonks was quite pregnant. This had been several months ago, and Harry would bet that the baby would be well on its way, if it hadn’t already arrived. “You shouldn’t be here, sir, what’s–?”
Lupin falters, coming to a full halt from where he had started to walk across the room. His face goes pale in seconds, making him look as if he had just been hit with a rather powerful stunner.
“Excuse me?” He chokes, his voice strained almost breathless.
The sound of it makes the alarm bells in Harry’s head ring so loudly that he wouldn’t be surprised if the blonde woman could hear them. In fact, both women in the room seem to be just as confused as he is, if the wary glances they exchange are any indication.
“And you look so… I don’t understand.” Harry mutters, barely coherent over the voice in his mind chanting “Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!”
He looks over the form of the still-frozen man across the room from him, his eyes searching every inch of him for answers, and then, all at once, he sees.
“You’re not Remus Lupin,” he whispers, the dread in his chest so thick that he’s unable to make himself any louder. Still, the room has fallen so deadly silent that his words almost seem to echo, and he has no doubts the three people in the room have heard them.
The man– not professor Lupin, not him, that is not the man you know– chokes again, but this time, the noise could almost pass as a hysterical laugh.
“I don’t know who you are or how you know who I am, but–” He starts, but Harry refuses to hear it.
“ No, I don’t know who you are, because you’re not Remus Lupin.”
The man stares at him for a few long seconds before sighing deeply. “Why not?” He asks, and if Harry didn't know better, he would think he almost sounds genuinely curious.
Whatever it is the fake-Lupin is trying to do, Harry’s not giving into it. “Because, aside from whatever it is you’ve done to his face, you’ve somehow missed that Remus Lupin has a massive scar going across the entire side of his throat. I’m honestly not sure how you mucked that one up, it tends to stick out.”
It’s true; it had been one of the first things Harry had noticed about the man when they met on the train.
And he hadn’t been the only one— Harry distinctly remembers that night in the shrieking shack, when Sirius had seemed more concerned about the scar than about proving his innocence.
“Merlin, Moony.” Sirius said, hand slowly reaching up to brush Professor Lupin’s neck.
Lupin flinches, though whether it’s from the touch, the old nickname, or something else remains unclear. Either way, Sirius yanks his hand away like it’s been burned, looking so devastated that Harry almost feels bad for him.
“Later, Sirius. Not now. Not– not here.” Professor Lupin whispers, and there’s something in the words that makes Harry feel like something important has been broken beyond repair. Sirius must hear it too, because the look on his face only grows more desperate.
Before any more words can be exchanged, though, Ron clears his throat pointedly, and both men blink rapidly, as if just now remembering that they have an audience.
Caught up in the memory, Harry almost misses the way the man’s face turns ashy, the already pale skin seeming to grey with his words.
It’s impossible to miss the way the woman with the braids steps forward dangerously, her hand tightening around her wand, or the way the blonde woman exhales sharply, narrowing her eyes as if seeing Harry for the first time.
The room is thick with tension, angry and bubbling and just on the cusp of boiling over, when Harry hears the door to the room Hermione’s in swing open.
He tries to turn, but it’s no use against the unrelenting body bind, and instead is forced to rely on listening to the approaching footsteps. It's clearly two people, and one of them is stumbling a good bit, but it still sounds like it could be–
Hermione gasps from behind him, and despite himself, Harry relaxes slightly.
A gasp means she’s breathing.
Stumbling means she’s not gravely injured.
He’ll take what he can get.
The footsteps are approaching, getting closer every second. The three people in front of Harry have gone still again, watching over his shoulder unblinkingly.
The blonde woman stands up suddenly, walking behind him so quickly that it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Just as quickly, though, she comes back, this time with her hand wrapped around Hermione’s arm.
As soon as she’s within his sight, Harry looks over her frantically, searching for any sign of injury.
Her face is the palest he’s ever seen it, and there’s a look in her eyes he’s only seen a few other times– a look that tells him that she’s just as lost as he is. The thought is terrifying, and Harry realises that the two of them might truly be at the mercy of their captors.
The blonde woman pushes her down onto the cushion next to him quite roughly, but she doesn’t even seem to notice. Instead, she leans in close to him, and begins to whisper desperately.
“I don’t know what’s going on. Don’t believe anything they say. It’s not–”
A pale hand lands on Hermione’s shoulder, cutting her off instantly. She jumps, and Harry hates it, hates the way that these people have somehow already managed to make his best friend so afraid.
Harry glares daggers at the offending hand, then follows the arm up, up, up, skating over the cream sweater and barely taking notice of the shock of red hair in his anger.
All the way until brilliant green meets brilliant green.
All the way until he’s looking into the very angry eyes of Lily Evans.
Just like that, the angry expression falls off of his face.
He thinks his heart must stop in his chest. He’s never felt this exposed before, not even when facing down Voldemort.
“You have two minutes to explain why on Godric’s green Earth I found you standing in front of my son’s crib less than an hour ago. If you lie, I’ll know, so it’s best not to. I hope you have a damn good reason.” She says, her voice cold with rage.
And for the second time that evening, Harry’s world disappears around him.