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Chapter Text

Harry was never quite certain what had changed and what remained the same. The larger things were obvious- his bedroom, and the Dursleys' attitude in general- but others crept up on him, catching him when he least expected it, a lingering unease making its way into the pit of his stomach and refusing to let go.

The curve in Privet Drive, just past number six, was particularly unsettling, and one he hadn't noticed straight away, not until he spotted it while standing in the front garden. When he'd been at Hogwarts, Harry didn't think much about Little Whinging, at least not unless he absolutely had to. And yet, that slight turn in the road caught him off-guard every time he saw it, given he remembered it being as straight as Aunt Petunia's posture whenever she welcomed in guests she pretended to like.

Maybe he was misremembering. Maybe the curve had always been there.

The larger changes weren't as easy to explain away.

Somehow, those larger changes were easier to grasp, at least upon first noticing them. They weren't any less strange, and each one continued to rock Harry's perception of whatever this new reality was, but at least he was able to face each one with complete certainty that they were, in fact, different.

His bedroom, for instance. Harry knew for a fact that he'd been moved from his cupboard to Dudley's second bedroom shortly after his first Hogwarts letter arrived; it was a memory that was seared into his mind. And yet he'd been in this world for nearly a week, with Dudley's birthday quickly approaching, with no indication the cupboard under the stairs had ever been used to store anything other than cleaning supplies and a small infestation of spiders. There was no camp bed, nor any other sign that Harry had spent any time here, aside from the moments he pulled open the door and peered inside, as though expecting the past he remembered to suddenly come roaring back into life.

"Harry," Aunt Petunia said sharply one afternoon as he shut the plywood door. "Why on earth are you always poking about in there?"

Harry jumped, not knowing she could see him from her vantage point in the kitchen, and trying to force an excuse to come to mind.

"Can't find my English homework," he mumbled.

"And why would your English homework be in the cupboard?" When Harry didn't answer, she frowned and went on. "Well, go find it, and once you do, you can make yourself useful and weed the back garden." She softened the tiniest amount. "I've already started, so it shouldn't take long."

Harry nodded and started back toward the stairs, the omnipresent pit in his stomach only growing deeper. He still couldn't quite figure out his aunt and uncle. Although Dudley was as spoiled as ever, the active hostility once thrown his way was quite unlike the dynamic within which Harry now found himself. For one thing, they called him Harry. They had occasionally called him that in his old life, but far more often than not he was either "Boy", or nothing at all. Any utterance of his given name was a rarity, a slip of the tongue, and yet here they were now, acting as though using his name was the most common thing in the world.

To be fair, Uncle Vernon did still call him "Boy" now and then, especially when he was irritated, but said irritation seemed less directed at Harry than it had once been. Even his rants seemed less heated than they'd once been, though he still made sure to inform anyone who would listen to all the ways the country was rapidly going to hell each night at dinner.

Harry still didn't know how exactly it had happened. He'd lived his life normally (or at least as normally as one could when they were Harry Potter), but somehow it was 1991 instead of 1996, which was confusing enough. On top of that, while some things were the same, others were... different.

The Veil- something had happened with the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. He'd gone there to save Sirius- but Sirius hadn't been there, until he was. There was fighting. And then-

Everything else blurred into a haze, indecipherable images flitting through the recesses of his mind too quickly to chase and grasp hold of.

He couldn't even remember the precise moment he'd become aware he was ten years old again. Much like the murky recollection of the events leading to the end of his past life, the beginning of his new one had the quality of a dream, its boundaries folding into itself and collapsing when placed under heightened scrutiny.

It had been a week since he'd understood- more or less- what was happening. He knew that much, at least.

He missed Ron and Hermione with a fierceness that made his chest ache. He missed Sirius, his mind always jumping slightly when he thought of his godfather, at something he knew was important, but the details of which he couldn't quite piece together.

Something had happened to Sirius- something in the Department of Mysteries- but what?

The idea that Sirius must be in Azkaban right now was a horrifying one. Harry, completely cut off from anyone who could help him, was tempted to man a solo expedition to break him out, but even he understood that there was a difference between reckless bravery and a straight-up death wish.

Professor Dumbledore would be able to help. But how could he get in touch with him? He didn't have access to an owl, and he could only imagine what the Muggle postal service would make of a letter addressed to Hogwarts. As each day passed, Harry found himself waking from his dreamlike state more and more, and he found himself increasingly determined to make contact with someone who could help him, even as he continued to sleepwalk his way through his days, only half-aware of the fog continuing to grip him.

The idea of asking his aunt and uncle for help was quickly dismissed. His relatives weren't as openly bitter toward his existence as he remembered them being, but Harry still didn't trust them, not with something like this, and not with his Hogwarts letter just around the corner. Any day now he'd make that first contact with the wizarding world, and the moment he did he'd do whatever it took to make his way to Professor Dumbledore and make things right.

Even so, an increasingly large part of himself was screaming to go now, to sneak away, catch a train to London, and ask the first person he found at the Leaky Cauldron to take him to Hogwarts. Hell, if he only had a wand, he could hail the Knight Bus and take it there himself. Still, he couldn't help but think that even with a wand, given all the changes around him, for all he knew the familiar gesture might lead not to the arrival of Stan Shunpike, but instead a hippogriff landing on his head. He wouldn't put it past this reality.

"Coward," he murmured to himself one night as he stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

Sirius was in Azkaban right this second- or at least Harry assumed he was. What sort of changes had there been in the magical world?

At first, Harry hadn't known if these changes were solely confined to the personalities of his aunt and uncle. After all, he had hardly any interaction with the world around him, aside from living with his relatives and his days at school, the latter of which was coming to an end as the summer holidays rapidly approached.

And yet-

It wasn't just his aunt and uncle. There was that curve in Privet Drive. There was the way the house didn't seem quite the way he'd remembered, its layout remaining the same yet the proportions being slightly... off. And then there was that sickening jolt Harry had one night as he gazed out his bedroom window at the dark sky overhead.

The stars were different. Despite mostly being in their proper places, five years of Astronomy classes made it clear that some constellations were in the wrong location, while others had stars added or removed, while others still were either entirely new or no longer in existence at all.

Harry lurched away from the window as though he'd been burned. Then, once a moment had passed, he looked outside once more.

The stars were still different.

And here he was, doing absolutely nothing at all aside from lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and calling himself a coward. It wasn't like him to sit and wait, and it was driving him half-mad with impatience and guilt.

But there was something else holding him back, something more than the simple logic that he should wait until Hagrid showed up with his Hogwarts letter. After all, Harry had never cared much for logic when something important was at stake. Harry couldn't put words to it, but it was as though he wasn't entirely himself, as though bit-by-bit he was learning how to be himself again. It was harder to do, harder to act, harder for the thoughts in his brain to come into being around him.

It was a bit like being under the Imperius Curse, but not really. Harry had at least been able to shake the Imperius Curse the last time he'd been under it.

He had an idea on his fifth or sixth day as a ten-year-old, momentarily crashing through the fog that hadn't yet lifted so abruptly that he must have physically reacted, as Aunt Petunia narrowed her eyes and asked if something was wrong.

"Can I visit Mrs. Figg?" he blurted out, lowering his fork, his potatoes forgotten.

How hadn't he thought of her until now? Each day Harry thought he was more free from the haze that surrounded his arrival than he actually was, and yet any form of retrospect seemed to indicate that he was only shaking it bit by bit.

His aunt and uncle stared at him, ignoring Dudley when he asked them to pass the gravy.

"Mum? Did you hear me?" Dudley looked back and forth between his parents, astounded his words hadn't been immediately heeded. "Mum? Dad?"

Aunt Petunia blinked, then passed the gravy to Dudley before turning back to Harry. "What do you mean, can you visit Mrs. Figg?"

Harry knew it was a strange question. There'd never been a time in his past life that he'd been excited to visit Mrs. Figg's house, which smelled of cabbage and too many cats, much less requested that he be allowed to visit. He shrugged, trying to appear as casual as possible. "I just thought... well, it's been a long time, and it might be nice to say hello. She must get lonely, living all by herself."

His aunt and uncle continued to stare at him, and even Dudley had finally taken notice of the conversation taking place between mouthfuls of food. "Who's Mrs. Figg?"

Now it was Harry's turn to stare, this time in exasperation at his cousin. Was he really that self-absorbed? Harry wasn't sure. He hadn't had as much interaction with this version of Dudley as he might have expected. It seemed that at some point in primary school his cousin had been held back a year, so they were in different classes, and while Dudley didn't seem adverse to shoving him now and then, Harry made sure to keep his distance, and Dudley wasn't as openly hostile as he'd once been, especially when Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were around.

"I've never heard of a Mrs. Figg," Uncle Vernon said, crinkling his face in confusion. He peered down at Harry, voice turning stern. "You aren't having a laugh at our expense, are you, boy?"

Harry's mouth had gone very dry. His gaze flitted from Uncle Vernon to Aunt Petunia, then back to Uncle Vernon, then back to Aunt Petunia.

"Answer your uncle, Harry." Aunt Petunia leaned forward, her gaze intense.

"I..." Harry trailed off. After a moment, he managed to say, "I thought a woman named Mrs. Figg used to watch me when I was young. Maybe it was just a dream."

"Must have been," Uncle Vernon said, though he still looked at Harry strangely. "You know, that head of yours has been in the clouds entirely too much lately. You'll want to smarten up and focus, hm?"

"I will." Despite there being many things he wanted to say, it was the only thing Harry could manage to utter, though he was tempted to toss in the never-ending scream of confusion illuminating most of his thoughts. He kept that part quiet.

"Eat your potatoes, Harry," Aunt Petunia said, though Harry didn't miss the impossible-to-decipher glance she shot Uncle Vernon's way before returning to her own dinner.

Dudley's birthday came and went. The day itself was uneventful; they were accompanied to the zoo by Piers Polkiss, who seemed to be exactly the same person in this world as the previous one, which was oddly a small comfort to Harry. Then again, he thought to himself, he'd hardly known Piers in either reality. For all he knew, the rat-faced boy was secretly the world's youngest astronaut in one world, and a professional balalaika player in the other.

There was never any question this time around over whether Harry would be included in the trip to the zoo; the non-existent Mrs. Figg's name wasn't mentioned, nor was any other babysitter's. Harry sat between Dudley and Piers on the journey there, half-listening to Uncle Vernon complain to Aunt Petunia about politics and the work ethic of any generation younger than his own. At the zoo, he was given his own Knickerbocker Glory, just the same as Dudley and Piers. Harry kept his distance from anything even resembling a snake and relaxed the slightest bit once they'd left the reptile house with all its glass intact, its inhabitants still behind it.

Later that evening, Uncle Vernon beamed at his son as the latter once more surveyed his small mountain of gifts. "You're shaping up to be a very fine young man indeed. I hope you know that, Dudley. Your mother and I couldn't be prouder."

"Thanks, Dad," Dudley said, not breaking his gaze from the back of one of his new computer games.

"My sweet Duddy-Wuddy." Aunt Petunia clasped her hands together, eyes welling up at the mere concept of her son's existence. "I can hardly believe you're ten years old already."

For a moment, it didn't register. Then, before he could stop himself, Harry blurted out, "Ten?"

The Dursleys stared at him. Harry stared back, then, as his brain shouted at him to shut up and act as though nothing had happened, he turned to Dudley, who he now understood hadn't been held back a year at all. "Sorry. I just... You're ten?"

"Of course he's ten," Uncle Vernon said, exasperation creeping into his tone. "How old did you think he was?"

The Dursleys were still staring at him, and, unable to backtrack, Harry hesitated before answering truthfully. "Eleven."

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's expressions were difficult to read, but Harry could easily tell they weren't positive ones.

"Harry, you're the one turning eleven," Aunt Petunia said at last.

"So wrapped up in himself he's the only person he can think about." Uncle Vernon's attempt at a smile and a casual tone didn't quite land. "He's a self-absorbed one, isn't he, Petunia? It'll be your day soon enough. Today's about Dudley."

That night, as Harry sat awake in bed, he heard hushed tones from the direction of his aunt and uncle's bedroom. Pushing open his bedroom door as quietly as possible, he strained his ears as best he could, stepping forward involuntarily when he heard the name Harry. His foot landed on a floorboard, which creaked loudly, and the voices fell abruptly silent. Harry quickly retreated back into his room, and when the voices started again they were much quieter than they'd been before.

One Saturday morning in July, Aunt Petunia took Harry into town to purchase his uniform for Stonewall High. Unable to find a secondhand option, she bought it new, lips pursed all the while, letting out a loud sniff of disapproval when the price was tallied. She even stopped at a local restaurant for lunch and let Harry order a hamburger.

They sat in silence at a battered table that smelled strongly of bacon grease. Harry's aunt regarded her chips with an air of disdain, spearing each one with her plastic fork before taking a small bite, the tidy pile before her hardly seeming to decrease.

"You've been out of sorts," Aunt Petunia finally said as Harry crumpled the paper in which his burger had come. "Is something the matter?

Harry didn't know how to respond. The last time around, he doubted his aunt would have noticed if he'd walked into the house with an axe lodged into his forehead, except perhaps to complain about stray specks of blood staining the rug.

"I'm fine," he managed to say, reaching for his last chip, which he proceeded to shove into his mouth, hoping that would be the end of it.

Mercifully, Aunt Petunia gave him a curt nod, and Harry thought this might indeed be the case. After a moment, however, she lowered her fork and spoke again. "I don't think you are, and I can't understand why. Your teacher called at the end of term, did you know that?" Her tone was sharp, but Harry was astonished she gave a damn at all, even if it was out of embarrassment over potential gossip.

She waited for him to explain himself, and when this was not forthcoming she folded her hands and continued on. "Mrs. Alderman said you hardly seemed to pay attention, and that you struggled to remember things that had only just happened a week or two before."

"I'm fine. Nothing's the matter," Harry mumbled, but Aunt Petunia just kept talking, as though he'd said nothing at all.

"I've certainly noticed it as well." She straightened her posture, fixing Harry with a look that he associated with being ordered to go to his cupboard. "And I'm concerned."

Harry looked up slowly, his mind racing. Who was this woman?

"I can't imagine it's drugs, not at your age." She frowned, and sounding very much like Uncle Vernon (or Argus Filch), she added, "But with the state most children are in these days, I suppose anything is possible."

"I'm not on drugs." Harry couldn't help but choke on a laugh. Drugs would be an easier explanation than whatever cosmic nonsense he'd found himself involuntarily wrapped up in. Then again, maybe it really was that simple. Maybe Malfoy had laced his pumpkin juice with the sap of some unidentified plant from the greenhouses, and he was actually thrashing about in the hospital wing, babbling incoherently about nonexistent curves in Privet Drive.

"Then tell me. What is it?"

There wasn't much warmth to Aunt Petunia's voice, but the look in her eyes was impossible to ignore. Harry couldn't recall her directing anything like it toward him before.

No- that was a lie. Harry thought back to that previous summer when the world was the way it was supposed to be, when he'd been fifteen instead of ten, when she'd rejected Uncle Vernon's attempt to toss him out and insisted he stay at Privet Drive. She had that look again.

This version of Aunt Petunia didn't seem particularly warm and cuddly, nor did she seem to want to spend any more time around her nephew than she absolutely had to, but things were different between them in a way he couldn't quite put to words, not even to himself.

Harry hesitated, the ever-present fog surrounding him seeming to dissipate just the slightest bit more.

"Tell me." Aunt Petunia leaned forward. "I'm not giving you a choice, Harry."

Holding back another laugh, Harry closed his eyes. When he opened them, he found Aunt Petunia's still focused on his. "You'd never believe me."

"Perhaps not," she said, with a nod to go on.

"I..." A bit more of the fog seemed to evaporate, and he thought his next words over carefully, before proceeding with entirely different ones.

"I remember things," he said at last. "From the past, but it's really the future, except I've done it already."

It wasn't until later that Harry would wonder why he hadn't simply said he needed to talk to Professor Dumbledore and refused to elaborate further until he was brought to him. It would have been a dramatic option, but no more so than the one he went with. 

Why had he trusted Aunt Petunia of all people with the truth?

It was during one of his many discussions with Professor McGonagall as they pieced together this new world-- and Harry's place in it-- that this conversation would arise, but that conversation wouldn't be for quite some time. For now, it was just Harry, his Aunt Petunia, and a forgotten pile of chips between them.

Meanwhile, Aunt Petunia didn't reply. Instead, she gave Harry a look he couldn't quite decipher, the kind of look he imagined from someone who'd just been told their hands were made of cheese, or that the Chudley Cannons had just won the Quidditch World Cup.

"That's not the only thing," he continued, silently aware that the haze was lifting even more. It was as though he'd only just been made aware that he'd been wading through treacle after having been set on dry land, and now he was recollecting what it was like to exist before either of those events occurred. "Things are... I dunno. They're different here. You and Uncle Vernon are- well, I haven't figured out the two of you yet, but you are different. Better, I think. You used to make me sleep in the cupboard, but I don't think that's happened here."

"What are you talking about?" Aunt Petunia hissed, looking about frantically for listening ears. "We've never made you sleep in a cupboard. Have you gone mad?" Before Harry could answer, she added, "And lower your voice."

Although he'd hardly been speaking above a whisper, Harry obliged. "Look, I don't understand it either. But for me, until recently, it was 1996. Something happened when... when I was trying to rescue a friend, and then it was 1991 again, and some things are the same, but others aren't, and I can never figure out which is going to be which." Now that he'd started talking, he couldn't stop, words tumbling out one after the other. His surroundings seemed crisper, clearer, and he desperately wanted them to stay this way. "Honestly, it's been kind of mental." He peered inside the bag carrying his new uniform on the chair beside him and said, "You know, the last time around you dyed Dudley's old clothes grey instead of buying me a uniform. It was brilliant when I found out I wouldn't have to wear them. I mean, it was brilliant mostly for other reasons, but that too."

"It is drugs, isn't it?" Aunt Petunia's tone trembled with a mix of anger and fear. "You foolish boy, what have you mixed yourself up in?"

"It's not drugs," Harry reassured her again. "I promise." He paused. "Where would a ten-year-old even get drugs?"

"They said on the telly children are getting started younger and younger," she said, half to herself and half to her rapidly cooling chips. "Even the primary schools-my God, it's made its way here, to Little Whinging-"

"It's not drugs," Harry repeated, struggling to keep his voice low and only just succeeding. He paused, thinking of the things he wasn't saying, the things that would convince Aunt Petunia that he might actually be telling the truth. "All right. How about this- I'm a wizard. I'm a fifth year at Hogwarts, or at least I was one. My parents weren't killed in a car crash, they were killed by Lord Voldemort. The last thing I remember is being at the Ministry of Magic, trying to rescue my godfather from Voldemort."

Aunt Petunia reared back as though she'd been slapped. Noises emerged from deep within her throat, none of them discernable. Then she was standing, her fingernails digging into Harry's arm as she dragged him outside, trays and wrappers still on the table that smelled of bacon grease. It wasn't until they were safely inside the car, doors closed and windows rolled up, that she hissed, "Where did you hear those words?"

"I told you," Harry said, his heart thudding in his chest, startled at how bloody calm he felt in spite of it. ""I've been trying to wait until- until my Hogwarts letter arrived. I wasn't going to tell you at all. But I have, because... well, I don't really know why, but I do need your help. I need to speak with Albus Dumbledore as soon as possible."

Aunt Petunia stared out the windscreen of the car, her body rigid, attention focused firmly on a nondescript shopfront further ahead. Then, in a sudden sharp movement, she slammed a hand against the steering wheel. "I knew something like this would happen if we took you in." Her shoulders shook with furious, unshed tears. "I knew at some point there'd be something- something unnatural, but this is taking it entirely too far!"

Harry didn't speak straight away. Only once his aunt's breathing had steadied somewhat did he say, "Well, I didn't ask for this to happen either."

Aunt Petunia exhaled, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You said you're a fifth year? I'm to believe you're... what, fifteen, then?"

Harry nodded. "Sixteen, almost. It was June when I left. Speaking of which- Dudley and I used to be the same age, but now he's younger than me. And there are other things. There's a curve in Privet Drive that wasn't there before. And the stars- even the stars are different. And-"

"Don't." Though the keys to the car were still in her purse, Aunt Petunia gripped the steering wheel tightly. "I don't want to know these things. I cannot-" Her voice caught, and she took a shuddering breath. "I will always help you, Harry, but I cannot manage knowing these things."

Harry didn't speak. Then, slowly, he nodded. Aunt Petunia took another breath. "You know... she brought wave upon wave of chaos into our home, but she certainly never brought anything like this." She thought it over for a moment, then said, "I imagine she'd be impressed, wouldn't she?"

She reached into her purse, retrieving a tissue for herself before offering one to Harry. Although he didn't need one, Harry accepted it.