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lomonaaerenTitle: Twisted Mirror
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: Canon divergence at the end of year 5, dimension travel, future selfcest, angst, drama, emotional manipulation, Dark Harry, past minor character deaths, past bullying, underage (15/16)
Pairings: Harry Potter/Harry Potter
Wordcount: 3750
Summary: Devastated in the aftermath of Sirius’s death, Harry goes to the Room of Requirement and asks for someone who will understand him. Why he then gets delivered a copy of his alternate dimension, much scarier self will remain a mystery.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of Summer” fics, short stories being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. This may or may not have a sequel in the future.
Twisted Mirror
Harry ran from the Headmaster’s office, his head filled with the ringing noises of the prophecy, his heart filled with grief.
He might have gone back to Gryffindor Tower, but instead, he turned towards the seventh floor. No one stopped him. Harry never even saw anyone who might have stopped him along the way. All he was aware of was the slam of his feet on the stone floor and his breath that rushed along, hot and furious, in his ears.
When he got to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, he began walking back and forth, his thoughts whirling around. When he had paced three times without a door appearing, though, he did his best to stop and take a deep breath.
Sirius was dead.
Yes, but what did he want? Harry’s thoughts danced back and forth between hoping for a place he could smash up, the way he had Dumbledore’s office, and thinking that he should choose something else, something more useful. Something—
Give me someone who will understand me.
Harry nodded so hard his neck hurt and started pacing back and forth. Yes, that was what he wanted. To pour his story into the ears of someone who would understand, who would blame him exactly as much as Harry blamed himself and not a whit more, someone who wouldn’t judge him but would know where Harry had fucked up.
Someone who wouldn’t lie to him. Someone who wouldn’t try to protect him by keeping secrets the way Dumbledore, with the best intentions in the world, had.
Yes. Yes, that’s what I want.
The door that appeared was made of black metal so flat and smooth that it reminded Harry of the walls in the Department of Mysteries. He shook his head, dashed his hand across his eyes, and yanked it open.
The room he stepped into was big and dark and almost bare. But in the middle was a huge circle of blue light etched on the floor. Harry blinked and let the door fall shut behind him. Maybe he was supposed to step into the circle, and it would take him to someone who understood?
Hermione’s voice came to life in the back of his head, scolding him for even thinking about doing such a thing, but at the moment, Harry couldn’t give less of a shit. He wanted so badly to get away from what had happened, he might have leaped into Voldemort’s arms if he’d appeared.
But only if he promised that I get to kill Bellatrix.
Harry edged forwards, studying the circle. The crackling blue light seemed to be laid down between five points that were all made of five-pointed stars. Harry eyed them and the black stone they lay on, and then got ready to step into the circle.
But before he could do that, the blue light crackled up and into a dome. Harry fell back a step and drew his wand with shaking fingers.
The dome flashed once and vanished with a noise like a thunderclap that made Harry clamp his hands over his ears. When he could hear again, a voice was speaking in low, angry words.
“—one who brought me here?”
Harry blinked and then stepped back. There was another him in the center of the circle.
It seemed impossible, but yes, it had to be. No one else had that scar, or those eyes, or those glasses, or that hair. Or, rather, the people who had them were all dead, and he was the only one who had them in that combination.
As the realization sank home, Harry held back the temptation to laugh like Sirius had been laughing in those old pictures of him. (Sirius). He was so fucked up that the only person who could understand him was another version of him, right?
Well, that was fine. Harry would talk, and then he would send the other Harry back where he’d come from. It would probably be for the best, anyway. That way, no one else would ever be able to hear thoughts that would probably feel as if Harry had ripped them bleeding and dripping from inside him.
“I asked the Room of Requirement for someone who would understand me,” he said, catching the other Harry’s attention. “And you showed up. I’ll send you back where you came from the minute I’m done talking to you. Are you going to listen or not?” But he was fairly sure the other Harry would. The Room wouldn’t have brought him here, otherwise.
*
Well, wasn’t this interesting.
Hadrian stared in interest at the other version of himself on the other side of the circle. A year younger, it looked like, maybe two, but Hadrian knew very well what malnutrition from the Dursleys did, and they might be the same age for all he knew. Same eyes, glasses, scar, hair, although this Harry had another scar visible on his arm when his sleeve shifted that Hadrian didn’t have.
But the real difference between them was the fury in this one’s eyes and the tears standing on his cheeks. Hadrian hadn’t shown any sadness like that in—well, it had only been a few years, but it felt like longer than he could remember.
“Why did you need to ask for someone who would understand you?” Hadrian asked, and made his voice as soft as he knew how. It didn’t take all that much effort. This was him, not one of his mindless fans who wanted to fawn on him or scold him for what he’d done.
The other version took a long, tearing breath. “Sirius is dead.”
Ah. This was a very different world, then. Hadrian had only known Sirius as a distant figure who had guiltily danced in and out of his life, wanting to love him but horrified what Hadrian had already become by the time Sirius broke out of Azkaban. Hadrian nodded encouragingly “Tell me about it.”
And Harry did, pacing back and forth and letting the words tumble out of him. Hadrian listened, and grew more and more interested as he did. Harry spoke of a connection with Voldemort, of having visions all year, of being lured with one of those visions to the Department of Mysteries. Of a prophecy. Of Sirius coming to rescue him and falling through some kind of deathly veil due to a spell from Bellatrix Lestrange, instead.
Of trying to curse Bellatrix Lestrange, and smashing up Dumbledore’s office when Dumbledore told him the truth about the prophecy.
Hadrian smiled. He could imagine that in most cases, he would have been bored with this recitation, and grateful to be put back into his own world as soon as possible. But this Harry wasn’t some saint who would gasp in horror when Hadrian revealed a little of his own past. He had potential. Releasing his rage, trying an Unforgivable…yes, Hadrian might be able to train him.
Harry swung back around to face him, wiping away the tears again. This time, he was closer to the circle, and Hadrian’s eyes caught on his right hand. He blinked and felt himself going rigid. “What is that?”
“A hand,” Harry snapped. “You’ve never seen one before?”
Hadrian smiled wider, where usually such an answer would only make him bristle. But he didn’t take his eyes from what he’d seen. “Not usually with words carved into the back of it, no.”
“Oh.” Harry blinked and looked down, twisting his hand back and forth as if he needed to remind himself of the scar. The implications made a patient rage grow in Hadrian, but, well, he needed to ask more questions first. “These are from detentions that Umbridge assigned me. With a Blood Quill.”
Hadrian stared at him. “Umbridge?”
“She wasn’t around in your world? Lucky. She was the Ministry flunky assigned to be the Defense professor this year, because Dumbledore couldn’t find one in time.” Harry sighed and tipped his head back, wiping a sleeve unselfconsciously across his nose. “Hermione and I lured her into the Forbidden Forest and the centaurs grabbed her, but she had all year to make me use that bloody quill.”
He chuckled, apparently because the pun amused him more than the thought of carving up his hand angered him. Or maybe he’d just had time to get used to it. Hadrian hadn’t, and a vast, ancient rage was moving through him.
He was faintly surprised. It really had been years since he’d felt this. But on the other hand, no one in his world would ever find out about this weakness, and Harry was another version of himself. If he couldn’t feel angry and protective on behalf of himself, who could he feel it for?
“And no one did anything about this? You told no one?”
Harry made an angry little spitting noise. “I tried to tell Professor McGonagall. She told me to keep my head down. Dumbledore was avoiding me all year. Who was I going to tell? Snape?”
For all that Hadrian had been a Slytherin, they were agreed on Snape. He shook his head. “No, I suppose you couldn’t.” He edged up to the perimeter of the circle and tried to step across it. Blue light snapped at him and drove him back. “Harry? Can I come out?”
Harry frowned at him, eyes guileless even with all the rage dimming down in them. “Why? If you come out, I don’t know if the Room can send you back to your own world.”
“Well, there’s not a whole lot there for me,” Hadrian said, which was only the truth. “I was thinking I might like to stay.”
Harry blinked and stared harder at him. Hadrian spread his hands.
“Why would you?” Harry whispered. His voice was so old and tired that Hadrian wanted to kill someone. He could start with Umbridge. “Voldemort is still alive here. I don’t know if he is in your world. Sirius is dead. I got him killed.” He shut his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face. “I have to stay with the Dursleys. I have to go back to them in a few days. There’s no way you could come with me. And what would Dumbledore say?”
Oh, he’s still with the Dursleys. Hadrian hadn’t seen those loathsome Muggles since the summer before his first year, given that he’d used the knowledge he’d absorbed from the spirit of Voldemort to head off to any number of safe, hidden places a paranoid Dark Lord had created and kept secret from his followers. He smiled at Harry and said, “I think I could solve some of those problems. And I wouldn’t be coming for Dumbledore or Sirius or Voldemort. I’d be coming for you.”
*
The words awakened an ache in Harry so deep and old that he didn’t know what to call it.
But he did know something that was too good to be true when he heard it.
Ron and Hermione are the only ones who’ve ever wanted to do something for just me, not because I’m my dad’s son or my mum’s son or the Boy-Who-Lived, and even they stopped writing to me when Dumbledore ordered them to.
Harry took a deep breath. “I don’t know you. I find it hard to believe that we have much in common other than our looks. I mean…” He gestured at the other Harry. “You’re taller than me, you look as if you’ve been through a war but you don’t have as many scars, you’re the better version of me. What’s here for you?”
The other Harry considered him with quiet, clear, cold green eyes. That was another thing that made him superior, Harry thought. He wasn’t collapsing in baby tears the way Harry was.
“You,” the other Harry said at last.
Harry shook his head. He’d—settled, kind of. Just talking to someone who hadn’t scolded him or interrupted him had helped. “Sorry, but that’s not enough. Your world needs you, too, don’t they?”
“I’ve defeated Voldemort there.” The other Harry had an odd, dark smile on his face. “I ended up with no close friends. I’m guessing from what you said that you’re in Gryffindor, and you had five people close enough to you to go to the Department of Mysteries at your side. I was Sorted into Slytherin, and the kids there hated me.”
Harry winced. “And you didn’t have any protection from Snape or Dumbledore, either, I suppose?”
The other Harry gave a sharp laugh that cut into Harry like the Blood Quill had. “No. Snape still hated me, and just assumed that I’d tricked the Hat or put myself into Slytherin for some grand prank I was planning. I tried to get through to him that I was really nothing like my father and didn’t remember him at all, but the bastard wouldn’t listen.
“Dumbledore…I don’t think Dumbledore had bad intentions, but he didn’t know what to do with me. He’d built up this picture in his mind of what I was going to be like, as much as any other fan of the Boy-Who-Lived, and when I didn’t behave that way, his idea was to call me up to his office and tell me about my parents. Trying to encourage the ‘right’ behavior, I suppose. But because he didn’t tell me what he wanted, I was left guessing, and I didn’t become like he wanted, and he distrusted me more.
“I was in the hospital wing five times in the first month alone. Malfoy was the ringleader.”
Harry closed his eyes. “And you didn’t manage to make them back off?”
“It took until spring. Then I made them stop.”
A sharp hiss of Parseltongue entered his voice on those last few words. Harry blinked his eyes open. Other Harry had his arms crossed and his eyes passionately blazing.
Just another way that he’s better than me. I would have crumpled if everyone in Slytherin hated me.
“I used Dark Arts,” the other Harry said, leaning forwards a little. “And I hurt them. I hurt them until they backed off, and Snape punished me, but he’d been doing that all along anyway. What was one more detention? It at least meant I could sleep in peace and not wake up to my clothes and books being torn to pieces around me and boils all over my body.
“And when Quirrell kidnapped me and took me down to face that stupid mirror, because he had some idea that I was the only one who could break the enchantment and get the Stone out, I burned him with my touch and then captured Voldemort’s spirit.”
Harry stared at him. “How?”
“With the only thing that would work. A living trap.” The other Harry’s smile widened. “Inside my own soul.”
Harry opened his mouth to say something, and then nothing came out. He shook his head a little, listening to the other Harry laughing softly. He wanted to say something, badly, but still nothing would come out.
Finally he asked, “Was it worth it?”
“Yes,” the other Harry instantly replied. “Once his soul was trapped inside me, I knew what he knew. I knew how to hide from the Dursleys and go to places where I could live on my own and practice magic during the summer. I knew secrets that would get people who might have tried to hurt me otherwise backing away. And I knew about the Horcruxes. Have you started hunting them yet? You should, soon.”
“Horcruxes?”
“Oh, Merlin. No one’s told you about them? I always suspected Dumbledore knew more than he was saying, but I thought maybe yours would have told you, because he—”
“Because he was telling me about so much else? Weren’t you listening to me?”
The other Harry paused. Then he said slowly, “Because I thought he might have a better relationship with you. But yeah, on balance, that was stupid of me, considering he only told you about the prophecy just now. I knew about it from the spirit of Voldemort.” He paused again. “So do you want me to stay and speak to you, or what?”
“I think you can tell me what you have to say from within that circle.” Harry lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes.
*
More potential.
Hadrian’s interest was growing. He hadn’t felt this strongly about anything in a long time, in fact. Although he was hunted in his own world and had to keep moving every few months, no one stood a true chance of killing him or touching him. Hadrian had too much knowledge, too many connections, and too many places to hide. He’d been growing steadily more and more bored. Books and learning, as nice as they were, weren’t a substitute for human interaction.
And this was a version of himself. Even if he was soft and Gryffindor and could still be hurt by having a man he barely knew die, even if his Voldemort was still alive, he was a Harry Potter.
No one should be able to hurt a version of Hadrian like this.
“True, perhaps,” Hadrian said. “But after I’m gone, where are you? Back to the knowledge that Dumbledore was keeping things from you and your friends can’t understand you.”
“I never said that they couldn’t understand me.” Harry’s fists were clenched hard enough that he winced a second later and unclenched them.
First lesson on the agenda. Teach him not to hurt himself. He has enough other people willing to do that.
“But you came here and called me instead of going to one of them.” Hadrian lowered his voice and made it as gentle as he could. “I could help you, Harry. I could tell you what Horcruxes are, guide you to their resting places. I doubt your Voldemort is that different from mine, and he might have used the same hiding places even if he chose different objects, or vice versa. I could make sure you survive. I could make sure that no one keeps secrets from you again.” Harry still looked unconvinced. Hadrian played the card he had thought might be too obvious for the immediate choice. “I could help you keep the people you value safe.”
Ah. There he goes. Harry’s face hardened and his back straightened. He was staring at Hadrian now as if he might actually be a symbol of hope. Hadrian tilted his head and tried to smile at him.
It took some work to remember how to do it.
“What are we going to do with you, though? How would we explain where you came from? It’s not as though we can explain there’s a second Harry Potter—”
“I actually go by Hadrian Black.”
“Oh. Why?”
“I had to perform a ritual to destroy Voldemort that sacrificed everything I was. That meant I couldn’t keep any part of my name.”
Harry blinked a few times but seemed to decide there were more important things to talk about, which Hadrian absolutely agreed with. “All right. But you didn’t answer my other questions.”
I’ll have to encourage that tendency to prioritize. “There are plenty of places we can go that will hide us. I just told you that, right?”
“You don’t have to be snide.”
Hadrian grinned. Honestly, it was going to be a fascinating dance, how to keep on the right side of the line of encouraging Harry to think clearly and independently, and keeping Harry from defying him. He was glad that Harry had called him. “You’re right, I don’t.”
“But you enjoy it?”
Hadrian let a smile bloom across his face. “Yes, exactly.”
Harry hesitated for a long moment more. Hadrian waited. He was sure that he was going to win, in the end. Harry needed someone, so much so that he’d come into the Room of Requirement and summoned someone from another world. He needed someone to follow him, protect him, help him.
Hadrian’s eyes trailed down Harry’s body. He’d had sex with several people before deciding that the human body, male or female or in between, held little interest for him. But with himself, someone whose every interest and desire he knew and could coax into a bonfire?
Yes, I want to fuck him.
But that would come later. When he had first coaxed Harry to trust him, repaired some of the problems in Harry’s life, and killed some of his enemies.
“At least you’re honest,” Harry muttered finally, and Hadrian had to hold back a laugh. “Yes, all right. Come on.”
Hadrian bowed his head, and stepped over the boundaries of the circle. It immediately went dark behind him, and he thought it had probably shut the way back to his world forever with it.
But that didn’t matter. There was a new world with new challenges open in front of him, and a new version of himself who could become the best he possibly could be under Hadrian’s tutelage.
He slung an arm around Harry’s shoulders. He was taller than Harry, which might come from age or better food. “How old are you, anyway?” he asked as he guided Harry towards the door out of the room. “I’m sixteen, and this is the autumn of what would have been my sixth year, at least in my world.”
“Fifteen. End of my fifth year. What do you mean, would have been your sixth year?”
Hadrian grinned at him. “Oh, Harry. I have so much to tell you.”
*
Harry looked up at his older self and hesitated. He wondered if he should trust someone who smiled with that many teeth, someone with eyes as dark as any Death Eater’s.
But Hadrian had offered him secrets. At the very least, Harry wanted to know what a Horcrux was.
And if Dumbledore had kept the secret of the prophecy from him this long, he might be keeping others. Hadrian was right about that.
Someone who could keep me and the others safer from Voldemort. Someone who knows how to defeat him. Someone who—
Harry couldn’t stop the thought from creeping in. Someone who might be the focus of the prophecy in this world, so I don’t have to be.
And someone who could make sure he never had to go back to the Dursleys. Harry could imagine himself locked there all summer the way he had been last year, but this time with a deeper grief to bear, and could imagine his mind falling apart.
He nodded and swallowed. “Lead the way.”
Hadrian pulled him tightly, protectively, to his side, and led the way out of the room.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: Canon divergence at the end of year 5, dimension travel, future selfcest, angst, drama, emotional manipulation, Dark Harry, past minor character deaths, past bullying, underage (15/16)
Pairings: Harry Potter/Harry Potter
Wordcount: 3750
Summary: Devastated in the aftermath of Sirius’s death, Harry goes to the Room of Requirement and asks for someone who will understand him. Why he then gets delivered a copy of his alternate dimension, much scarier self will remain a mystery.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of Summer” fics, short stories being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. This may or may not have a sequel in the future.
Twisted Mirror
Harry ran from the Headmaster’s office, his head filled with the ringing noises of the prophecy, his heart filled with grief.
He might have gone back to Gryffindor Tower, but instead, he turned towards the seventh floor. No one stopped him. Harry never even saw anyone who might have stopped him along the way. All he was aware of was the slam of his feet on the stone floor and his breath that rushed along, hot and furious, in his ears.
When he got to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, he began walking back and forth, his thoughts whirling around. When he had paced three times without a door appearing, though, he did his best to stop and take a deep breath.
Sirius was dead.
Yes, but what did he want? Harry’s thoughts danced back and forth between hoping for a place he could smash up, the way he had Dumbledore’s office, and thinking that he should choose something else, something more useful. Something—
Give me someone who will understand me.
Harry nodded so hard his neck hurt and started pacing back and forth. Yes, that was what he wanted. To pour his story into the ears of someone who would understand, who would blame him exactly as much as Harry blamed himself and not a whit more, someone who wouldn’t judge him but would know where Harry had fucked up.
Someone who wouldn’t lie to him. Someone who wouldn’t try to protect him by keeping secrets the way Dumbledore, with the best intentions in the world, had.
Yes. Yes, that’s what I want.
The door that appeared was made of black metal so flat and smooth that it reminded Harry of the walls in the Department of Mysteries. He shook his head, dashed his hand across his eyes, and yanked it open.
The room he stepped into was big and dark and almost bare. But in the middle was a huge circle of blue light etched on the floor. Harry blinked and let the door fall shut behind him. Maybe he was supposed to step into the circle, and it would take him to someone who understood?
Hermione’s voice came to life in the back of his head, scolding him for even thinking about doing such a thing, but at the moment, Harry couldn’t give less of a shit. He wanted so badly to get away from what had happened, he might have leaped into Voldemort’s arms if he’d appeared.
But only if he promised that I get to kill Bellatrix.
Harry edged forwards, studying the circle. The crackling blue light seemed to be laid down between five points that were all made of five-pointed stars. Harry eyed them and the black stone they lay on, and then got ready to step into the circle.
But before he could do that, the blue light crackled up and into a dome. Harry fell back a step and drew his wand with shaking fingers.
The dome flashed once and vanished with a noise like a thunderclap that made Harry clamp his hands over his ears. When he could hear again, a voice was speaking in low, angry words.
“—one who brought me here?”
Harry blinked and then stepped back. There was another him in the center of the circle.
It seemed impossible, but yes, it had to be. No one else had that scar, or those eyes, or those glasses, or that hair. Or, rather, the people who had them were all dead, and he was the only one who had them in that combination.
As the realization sank home, Harry held back the temptation to laugh like Sirius had been laughing in those old pictures of him. (Sirius). He was so fucked up that the only person who could understand him was another version of him, right?
Well, that was fine. Harry would talk, and then he would send the other Harry back where he’d come from. It would probably be for the best, anyway. That way, no one else would ever be able to hear thoughts that would probably feel as if Harry had ripped them bleeding and dripping from inside him.
“I asked the Room of Requirement for someone who would understand me,” he said, catching the other Harry’s attention. “And you showed up. I’ll send you back where you came from the minute I’m done talking to you. Are you going to listen or not?” But he was fairly sure the other Harry would. The Room wouldn’t have brought him here, otherwise.
*
Well, wasn’t this interesting.
Hadrian stared in interest at the other version of himself on the other side of the circle. A year younger, it looked like, maybe two, but Hadrian knew very well what malnutrition from the Dursleys did, and they might be the same age for all he knew. Same eyes, glasses, scar, hair, although this Harry had another scar visible on his arm when his sleeve shifted that Hadrian didn’t have.
But the real difference between them was the fury in this one’s eyes and the tears standing on his cheeks. Hadrian hadn’t shown any sadness like that in—well, it had only been a few years, but it felt like longer than he could remember.
“Why did you need to ask for someone who would understand you?” Hadrian asked, and made his voice as soft as he knew how. It didn’t take all that much effort. This was him, not one of his mindless fans who wanted to fawn on him or scold him for what he’d done.
The other version took a long, tearing breath. “Sirius is dead.”
Ah. This was a very different world, then. Hadrian had only known Sirius as a distant figure who had guiltily danced in and out of his life, wanting to love him but horrified what Hadrian had already become by the time Sirius broke out of Azkaban. Hadrian nodded encouragingly “Tell me about it.”
And Harry did, pacing back and forth and letting the words tumble out of him. Hadrian listened, and grew more and more interested as he did. Harry spoke of a connection with Voldemort, of having visions all year, of being lured with one of those visions to the Department of Mysteries. Of a prophecy. Of Sirius coming to rescue him and falling through some kind of deathly veil due to a spell from Bellatrix Lestrange, instead.
Of trying to curse Bellatrix Lestrange, and smashing up Dumbledore’s office when Dumbledore told him the truth about the prophecy.
Hadrian smiled. He could imagine that in most cases, he would have been bored with this recitation, and grateful to be put back into his own world as soon as possible. But this Harry wasn’t some saint who would gasp in horror when Hadrian revealed a little of his own past. He had potential. Releasing his rage, trying an Unforgivable…yes, Hadrian might be able to train him.
Harry swung back around to face him, wiping away the tears again. This time, he was closer to the circle, and Hadrian’s eyes caught on his right hand. He blinked and felt himself going rigid. “What is that?”
“A hand,” Harry snapped. “You’ve never seen one before?”
Hadrian smiled wider, where usually such an answer would only make him bristle. But he didn’t take his eyes from what he’d seen. “Not usually with words carved into the back of it, no.”
“Oh.” Harry blinked and looked down, twisting his hand back and forth as if he needed to remind himself of the scar. The implications made a patient rage grow in Hadrian, but, well, he needed to ask more questions first. “These are from detentions that Umbridge assigned me. With a Blood Quill.”
Hadrian stared at him. “Umbridge?”
“She wasn’t around in your world? Lucky. She was the Ministry flunky assigned to be the Defense professor this year, because Dumbledore couldn’t find one in time.” Harry sighed and tipped his head back, wiping a sleeve unselfconsciously across his nose. “Hermione and I lured her into the Forbidden Forest and the centaurs grabbed her, but she had all year to make me use that bloody quill.”
He chuckled, apparently because the pun amused him more than the thought of carving up his hand angered him. Or maybe he’d just had time to get used to it. Hadrian hadn’t, and a vast, ancient rage was moving through him.
He was faintly surprised. It really had been years since he’d felt this. But on the other hand, no one in his world would ever find out about this weakness, and Harry was another version of himself. If he couldn’t feel angry and protective on behalf of himself, who could he feel it for?
“And no one did anything about this? You told no one?”
Harry made an angry little spitting noise. “I tried to tell Professor McGonagall. She told me to keep my head down. Dumbledore was avoiding me all year. Who was I going to tell? Snape?”
For all that Hadrian had been a Slytherin, they were agreed on Snape. He shook his head. “No, I suppose you couldn’t.” He edged up to the perimeter of the circle and tried to step across it. Blue light snapped at him and drove him back. “Harry? Can I come out?”
Harry frowned at him, eyes guileless even with all the rage dimming down in them. “Why? If you come out, I don’t know if the Room can send you back to your own world.”
“Well, there’s not a whole lot there for me,” Hadrian said, which was only the truth. “I was thinking I might like to stay.”
Harry blinked and stared harder at him. Hadrian spread his hands.
“Why would you?” Harry whispered. His voice was so old and tired that Hadrian wanted to kill someone. He could start with Umbridge. “Voldemort is still alive here. I don’t know if he is in your world. Sirius is dead. I got him killed.” He shut his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face. “I have to stay with the Dursleys. I have to go back to them in a few days. There’s no way you could come with me. And what would Dumbledore say?”
Oh, he’s still with the Dursleys. Hadrian hadn’t seen those loathsome Muggles since the summer before his first year, given that he’d used the knowledge he’d absorbed from the spirit of Voldemort to head off to any number of safe, hidden places a paranoid Dark Lord had created and kept secret from his followers. He smiled at Harry and said, “I think I could solve some of those problems. And I wouldn’t be coming for Dumbledore or Sirius or Voldemort. I’d be coming for you.”
*
The words awakened an ache in Harry so deep and old that he didn’t know what to call it.
But he did know something that was too good to be true when he heard it.
Ron and Hermione are the only ones who’ve ever wanted to do something for just me, not because I’m my dad’s son or my mum’s son or the Boy-Who-Lived, and even they stopped writing to me when Dumbledore ordered them to.
Harry took a deep breath. “I don’t know you. I find it hard to believe that we have much in common other than our looks. I mean…” He gestured at the other Harry. “You’re taller than me, you look as if you’ve been through a war but you don’t have as many scars, you’re the better version of me. What’s here for you?”
The other Harry considered him with quiet, clear, cold green eyes. That was another thing that made him superior, Harry thought. He wasn’t collapsing in baby tears the way Harry was.
“You,” the other Harry said at last.
Harry shook his head. He’d—settled, kind of. Just talking to someone who hadn’t scolded him or interrupted him had helped. “Sorry, but that’s not enough. Your world needs you, too, don’t they?”
“I’ve defeated Voldemort there.” The other Harry had an odd, dark smile on his face. “I ended up with no close friends. I’m guessing from what you said that you’re in Gryffindor, and you had five people close enough to you to go to the Department of Mysteries at your side. I was Sorted into Slytherin, and the kids there hated me.”
Harry winced. “And you didn’t have any protection from Snape or Dumbledore, either, I suppose?”
The other Harry gave a sharp laugh that cut into Harry like the Blood Quill had. “No. Snape still hated me, and just assumed that I’d tricked the Hat or put myself into Slytherin for some grand prank I was planning. I tried to get through to him that I was really nothing like my father and didn’t remember him at all, but the bastard wouldn’t listen.
“Dumbledore…I don’t think Dumbledore had bad intentions, but he didn’t know what to do with me. He’d built up this picture in his mind of what I was going to be like, as much as any other fan of the Boy-Who-Lived, and when I didn’t behave that way, his idea was to call me up to his office and tell me about my parents. Trying to encourage the ‘right’ behavior, I suppose. But because he didn’t tell me what he wanted, I was left guessing, and I didn’t become like he wanted, and he distrusted me more.
“I was in the hospital wing five times in the first month alone. Malfoy was the ringleader.”
Harry closed his eyes. “And you didn’t manage to make them back off?”
“It took until spring. Then I made them stop.”
A sharp hiss of Parseltongue entered his voice on those last few words. Harry blinked his eyes open. Other Harry had his arms crossed and his eyes passionately blazing.
Just another way that he’s better than me. I would have crumpled if everyone in Slytherin hated me.
“I used Dark Arts,” the other Harry said, leaning forwards a little. “And I hurt them. I hurt them until they backed off, and Snape punished me, but he’d been doing that all along anyway. What was one more detention? It at least meant I could sleep in peace and not wake up to my clothes and books being torn to pieces around me and boils all over my body.
“And when Quirrell kidnapped me and took me down to face that stupid mirror, because he had some idea that I was the only one who could break the enchantment and get the Stone out, I burned him with my touch and then captured Voldemort’s spirit.”
Harry stared at him. “How?”
“With the only thing that would work. A living trap.” The other Harry’s smile widened. “Inside my own soul.”
Harry opened his mouth to say something, and then nothing came out. He shook his head a little, listening to the other Harry laughing softly. He wanted to say something, badly, but still nothing would come out.
Finally he asked, “Was it worth it?”
“Yes,” the other Harry instantly replied. “Once his soul was trapped inside me, I knew what he knew. I knew how to hide from the Dursleys and go to places where I could live on my own and practice magic during the summer. I knew secrets that would get people who might have tried to hurt me otherwise backing away. And I knew about the Horcruxes. Have you started hunting them yet? You should, soon.”
“Horcruxes?”
“Oh, Merlin. No one’s told you about them? I always suspected Dumbledore knew more than he was saying, but I thought maybe yours would have told you, because he—”
“Because he was telling me about so much else? Weren’t you listening to me?”
The other Harry paused. Then he said slowly, “Because I thought he might have a better relationship with you. But yeah, on balance, that was stupid of me, considering he only told you about the prophecy just now. I knew about it from the spirit of Voldemort.” He paused again. “So do you want me to stay and speak to you, or what?”
“I think you can tell me what you have to say from within that circle.” Harry lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes.
*
More potential.
Hadrian’s interest was growing. He hadn’t felt this strongly about anything in a long time, in fact. Although he was hunted in his own world and had to keep moving every few months, no one stood a true chance of killing him or touching him. Hadrian had too much knowledge, too many connections, and too many places to hide. He’d been growing steadily more and more bored. Books and learning, as nice as they were, weren’t a substitute for human interaction.
And this was a version of himself. Even if he was soft and Gryffindor and could still be hurt by having a man he barely knew die, even if his Voldemort was still alive, he was a Harry Potter.
No one should be able to hurt a version of Hadrian like this.
“True, perhaps,” Hadrian said. “But after I’m gone, where are you? Back to the knowledge that Dumbledore was keeping things from you and your friends can’t understand you.”
“I never said that they couldn’t understand me.” Harry’s fists were clenched hard enough that he winced a second later and unclenched them.
First lesson on the agenda. Teach him not to hurt himself. He has enough other people willing to do that.
“But you came here and called me instead of going to one of them.” Hadrian lowered his voice and made it as gentle as he could. “I could help you, Harry. I could tell you what Horcruxes are, guide you to their resting places. I doubt your Voldemort is that different from mine, and he might have used the same hiding places even if he chose different objects, or vice versa. I could make sure you survive. I could make sure that no one keeps secrets from you again.” Harry still looked unconvinced. Hadrian played the card he had thought might be too obvious for the immediate choice. “I could help you keep the people you value safe.”
Ah. There he goes. Harry’s face hardened and his back straightened. He was staring at Hadrian now as if he might actually be a symbol of hope. Hadrian tilted his head and tried to smile at him.
It took some work to remember how to do it.
“What are we going to do with you, though? How would we explain where you came from? It’s not as though we can explain there’s a second Harry Potter—”
“I actually go by Hadrian Black.”
“Oh. Why?”
“I had to perform a ritual to destroy Voldemort that sacrificed everything I was. That meant I couldn’t keep any part of my name.”
Harry blinked a few times but seemed to decide there were more important things to talk about, which Hadrian absolutely agreed with. “All right. But you didn’t answer my other questions.”
I’ll have to encourage that tendency to prioritize. “There are plenty of places we can go that will hide us. I just told you that, right?”
“You don’t have to be snide.”
Hadrian grinned. Honestly, it was going to be a fascinating dance, how to keep on the right side of the line of encouraging Harry to think clearly and independently, and keeping Harry from defying him. He was glad that Harry had called him. “You’re right, I don’t.”
“But you enjoy it?”
Hadrian let a smile bloom across his face. “Yes, exactly.”
Harry hesitated for a long moment more. Hadrian waited. He was sure that he was going to win, in the end. Harry needed someone, so much so that he’d come into the Room of Requirement and summoned someone from another world. He needed someone to follow him, protect him, help him.
Hadrian’s eyes trailed down Harry’s body. He’d had sex with several people before deciding that the human body, male or female or in between, held little interest for him. But with himself, someone whose every interest and desire he knew and could coax into a bonfire?
Yes, I want to fuck him.
But that would come later. When he had first coaxed Harry to trust him, repaired some of the problems in Harry’s life, and killed some of his enemies.
“At least you’re honest,” Harry muttered finally, and Hadrian had to hold back a laugh. “Yes, all right. Come on.”
Hadrian bowed his head, and stepped over the boundaries of the circle. It immediately went dark behind him, and he thought it had probably shut the way back to his world forever with it.
But that didn’t matter. There was a new world with new challenges open in front of him, and a new version of himself who could become the best he possibly could be under Hadrian’s tutelage.
He slung an arm around Harry’s shoulders. He was taller than Harry, which might come from age or better food. “How old are you, anyway?” he asked as he guided Harry towards the door out of the room. “I’m sixteen, and this is the autumn of what would have been my sixth year, at least in my world.”
“Fifteen. End of my fifth year. What do you mean, would have been your sixth year?”
Hadrian grinned at him. “Oh, Harry. I have so much to tell you.”
*
Harry looked up at his older self and hesitated. He wondered if he should trust someone who smiled with that many teeth, someone with eyes as dark as any Death Eater’s.
But Hadrian had offered him secrets. At the very least, Harry wanted to know what a Horcrux was.
And if Dumbledore had kept the secret of the prophecy from him this long, he might be keeping others. Hadrian was right about that.
Someone who could keep me and the others safer from Voldemort. Someone who knows how to defeat him. Someone who—
Harry couldn’t stop the thought from creeping in. Someone who might be the focus of the prophecy in this world, so I don’t have to be.
And someone who could make sure he never had to go back to the Dursleys. Harry could imagine himself locked there all summer the way he had been last year, but this time with a deeper grief to bear, and could imagine his mind falling apart.
He nodded and swallowed. “Lead the way.”
Hadrian pulled him tightly, protectively, to his side, and led the way out of the room.
