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lomonaaerenTitle: Universal Chaos
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Profanity, sex, some angst, mentions of suicide, and more than your recommended daily dose of philosophy. It also takes place (in both universes) after DH, but does not take account of the epilogue.
Summary: Harry has figured out several things about his life, and is feeling quietly good about himself. Naturally, this is the time he gets summoned to another universe by an alternate version of himself who’s in love with Draco Malfoy but can’t mend the breach between them. Harry agrees to apologize for the other Harry, leaving that self a free chance to win Malfoy’s affections.
Author’s Notes: This will be a thirteen-chapter story, probably around 60,000 words. The first chapter is fairly confusing, but I promise it gets clearer from there if you hang on.
Universal Chaos
“If the universe was created by God, for God’s purposes, then all the purposes we can find in it must ultimately be due to God’s purposes. But what are God’s purposes? That is something of a mystery.”—Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.
Chapter One—Harry’s Purpose
“Another one, Harry?” Tom held out a glass of butterbeer hopefully in his direction.
Harry smiled and shook his head as he pushed his chair back from his table. He never knew exactly why Tom was always so eager to see him stay in the Leaky Cauldron, other than the fact that Harry always brought a crowd of friends with him and attracted a lot of people eager to get a glimpse of “the Chosen One.”
Come to think of it, maybe that’s enough.
“No, thanks,” he said, when Tom continued to offer the glass. “I have a meeting with the Minister in the morning, and I need to get some sleep before then.” It was already almost midnight, according to the new clock that Tom had hung proudly behind the bar, and his meeting with Kingsley was at eight.
“Harry!” Ron waved frantically from the other side of the table, as though he was a mile away and Harry would somehow have trouble seeing him. “You goshing—going to enter Aursh—Auror training? Finally!” he added, for the benefit of the other people in the group. Seamus, still nursing a single mug of Firewhisky, snorted, but Dean and Neville and Terry Boot looked up in interest.
“I don’t know yet,” Harry said. “I think the Minister will offer me a place, but maybe that’s not what I want to do anymore.” He shrugged when Ron stared at him incredulously. Ron had been in Auror training for almost a year, and, according to him, it was the best thing since Hermione’s agreeing to marry him. “I had enough of chasing Dark wizards during the war.”
“N—not the sh—same,” Ron said, and then hiccoughed and passed out in the middle of the table.
Harry rolled his eyes. “You can see him home?” he asked Seamus.
“I’m seeing the rest of this lot home,” Seamus said. “What’s one more?” He smiled and waved a hand at Harry. “Good luck, mate, whatever you decide.”
Harry smiled, waved back, and ducked out of the Leaky Cauldron. Though Seamus would never replace Ron as his best friend, he was the one who had been the most understanding over the past two years as Harry worked out what he wanted and how that might have changed from the time he was in his fifth year at Hogwarts. Ron was going to become an Auror; Neville was working in Herbology; Dean had taken up training as a professional artist; Terry Boot hoped that McGonagall would manage to persuade Binns to retire so that he could become the History of Magic teacher at Hogwarts. All their adult lives seemed comfortably connected to and continuous with their childhoods.
Not for Harry.
But that wasn’t a bad thing, he thought as he wandered slowly down Diagon Alley in the direction of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. He had started staying with George after Fred’s funeral to keep an eye on him, and it had evolved into an arrangement that suited them both. Harry made sure George’s drinking and self-blame didn’t get excessive, and George didn’t ask Harry the questions about his future that he found so uncomfortable from Ron and Hermione.
Honestly, why does everyone need to know by the time they’re twenty what they’re doing for the rest of their lives? I don’t yet, that’s all. Maybe I will become an Auror, and then Ron would be worrying about nothing.
Harry lifted his head so that he could watch the stars. They were dim and distant above Diagon Alley as they were above all of London, thanks to the lights from the Muggle parts, but he could pick out a few more constellations now, thanks to paying more attention to Astronomy during his “eighth” term at Hogwarts. Orion. Draco. Sagittarius.
I made some strides. I know what I don’t want to do.
One of those things was to spend his life in endless grief. So Harry had made himself attend all the funerals, as hard as it was, even Fred’s, and then go to a Mind-Healer when he still had nightmares about Voldemort and dreams where he almost saved Remus, or Snape, or the other people who had died. It had taken more than a year and a half, and the Daily Prophet ran some stories speculating on whether Harry was mad. Harry had known that would happen. He put up with it, even though he hated it, and eventually the nightmares diminished.
He would always miss the people who had died. He didn’t see any reason to pine himself to death over them.
And he had decided, regretfully, that he didn’t want to date Ginny. There was too much of an invisible barrier between them. She’d grown up and developed other interests whilst he went to the Mind-Healers, and even if that hadn’t happened, there was that year during the war they’d spent mostly apart. Too much distance there. The things she wanted weren’t the things he wanted, except maybe a family and for the Weasleys to be happy.
Harry had decided that his life was his own, and he wasn’t willing to marry Ginny just to have children or please Molly.
Molly, and Ron, and Arthur, hadn’t been too pleased about that. But Ginny, the one who really mattered, had looked at him, given him a small smile, and started dating Dean a month later. She didn’t want to give up her life for other people, either, no matter how happy her mother would have been had she married Harry.
So Harry weathered that, too. Now both Ron and Hermione seemed to accept that Harry and Ginny wouldn’t miraculously get back together, and the rest of the Weasleys didn’t mention it except to tease them.
Harry frowned and hunched his shoulders a little against the oncoming cold. It was the thirty-first of May, but an unusually chill night for it.
What Ron and Hermione couldn’t accept was that Harry didn’t have any idea of what he wanted to do if he wasn’t going to become an Auror, or who he wanted to date if he wasn’t going to date Ginny.
“But don’t you want to do something?” That was the question Hermione always asked him, her eyes wide and her hand on his arm gentle. “You might be all right at the moment, but what will happen when you start feeling bored? You need activity and life around you, Harry. You’ve always been busy. I know a lot of people start doing poorly once they leave the structured routine of Hogwarts. I don’t want you to be one of them.”
Harry appreciated the concern, but then she would start trying to recruit him into SPEW, which had its own offices now, and he would start looking for some escape.
Ron was even worse, dropping references to Auror training into every conversation and asking whether Harry liked every pretty girl who walked past them. Their worst row had come when Ron had said that Harry should just adopt Teddy, who spent the majority of his time with Andromeda. If he didn’t want to adopt Teddy, Ron implied, then he had no reason to avoid Auror training, because a family was the only reason to do so. He wouldn’t listen to reason when Harry had pointed out that he didn’t want to take Teddy away from his grandmother, and they’d punched each other a few times over it.
Harry took an irritated breath and managed to settle his shoulders with a slight shake. That had been three weeks ago. He and Ron were friends again. He didn’t want to think about the fight now.
They were all so busy, everyone around them, still cleaning up from the war, or mourning the dead, or moving on with their lives. They seemed puzzled that Harry didn’t quite fit into any of those categories. Come to that, Harry was a bit puzzled himself, but he didn’t see a reason to be worried about it. Eventually, he’d make up his mind and move in one direction or another, choose something to do and do it.
Maybe even tomorrow, if Kingsley makes the Aurors sound attractive enough.
For right now, he liked his simple, uncrowded life: seeing Teddy three times a week so he could give Andromeda some time to herself, staying with George, having dinner often with the Weasleys, drinking with Ron and the rest of the lads on the weekends. There was no reason for him to hurry himself out of that.
As he reached the joke shop and pulled out his key to unlock the door, he looked up at the stars again. A streak of light moved across them. Harry caught his breath and smiled. Was a meteor shower starting?
No. It was something else. It had to be, because there were multiple streaks of light moving across the sky, in all directions. The stars themselves were blurring, whirling, and changing. Harry stared at them and even moved a few steps forwards, as if that would somehow make his view better, his mouth hanging open. What the fuck is happening?
The streaks of light unfolded suddenly. Now Harry watched a long series of springs or tubes coiling through space, folding back on one another and jumping apart from each other again, tumbling and rising and arching in configurations that seemed to require more than three dimensions. His eyes ached, but this was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. He couldn’t look away.
The springs collided in the air above his head, brewing together like a maelstrom. Harry caught his breath—
And then he couldn’t breathe. He flailed his arms, his lungs laboring and his eyes fluttering frantically. Not only couldn’t he breathe, he thought there was an odd weight squatting on him that was forcing him flat, squeezing him the way Side-Along Apparition did.
Then he was gone.
*
Harry opened his eyes and scrambled to his feet at once, reaching for his wand. Thankfully, given his last memory, his wand was where he had left it, in his right sleeve. Harry flicked his wrist so that it dropped into his hand and then spent a moment looking around, trying to determine where he was.
A dust-colored circle surrounded him, and shone with yellow light that rose into place like cage bars. But the circle itself was drawn on a perfectly ordinary blue carpet, and the rest of the space—four walls with portraits hung on them, chairs scattered around on the carpet, a couch with lots of cushions, a ceiling about eight feet above his head, a broom leaning in the corner—indicated a wizard’s flat. Harry blinked and relaxed a little. Did someone bring me here? Why? How was the vision I saw connected to that?
Then Harry Potter stepped up to the edge of the circle in front of him, and things got strange again.
“Who are you?” Harry asked, aiming his wand. “And don’t tell me that you’re me, because I know myself, and you’re not me.” That made sense in my head, so I’ll stick with it. Besides, it’s probably someone using Polyjuice or Transfiguration.
The other version of himself smiled wryly, just the way Harry had smiled when he hugged Ginny for the last time on the evening they discussed dating and decided to give it up. “This is harder than I thought,” he muttered. His voice was Harry’s voice. He pushed his hair away from his forehead, and there was a scar. But the scar would be there with Polyjuice, too, Harry reminded himself; he’d learned that the hard way after someone impersonated him a year ago and ran around sleeping with random star-struck women. “And there’s no easy explanation. Can you sit down?”
“On the carpet?” Harry echoed. Maybe it wasn’t a very sound test, but he wanted to see what would happen if he complained. Would his captor care about his discomfort or not?
“Oh, sorry!” The other Harry flushed the way Harry knew he would if he forgot something important, like Hermione deciding to be vegetarian, and flicked his wand. A chair sprang into being in the middle of the charmed circle. Harry sat down cautiously in it. It was made of wood, but it had a Cushioning Charm on the seat.
“What about lowering the cage bars?” he asked next.
The other Harry coughed and shifted from foot to foot—and that was the way Harry would have handled the meeting with Kingsley if Kingsley tried to press him to enter the Auror Corps. If this was an imitation, Harry had to admit reluctantly, it was a bloody good one. “I’m afraid I don’t want to do that just yet. If you refuse to help me, then you might want to attack me. And even if you don’t, then it’s easier to leave the bars up so I can send you back to your own universe. Otherwise, I’d have to start the spell all over again, and that’s a nuisance.”
“My own universe,” Harry said flatly. He was glad that he was already sitting down.
“Yes.” The other Harry edged closer and smiled at him. “I bet you saw a lot of tubes or springs spiraling through space right before you came here, right? They were probably among the stars if it was at night.” He looked embarrassed for a minute. “I wanted to cast the spell at night, but it’s tricky to tell time between the universes. It’s even tricky trying to find a universe enough like my own so that I can bring over a version of myself who would help me.” Suddenly he paled. “I say, awfully sorry if you can’t help me.”
“I still don’t understand this.” Harry tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “What the fuck kind of spell did you cast? How do I know that you aren’t someone impersonating me and trying to blackmail me or make me look like a fool?”
The other Harry’s flush shifted to one of anger. “Listen, I wouldn’t have done this if I had any choice,” he snapped. “But it’s a matter of life and death, all right? I want to spend the rest of my life with someone, and I can’t if I don’t know how our argument went in other universes, so I know the way to make it up to him.”
Harry put his head in his hands. He wasn’t actually sure what bewildered him the most out of that speech: the reference to other universes, that the anger was also a good counterfeit, or the fact that this version of himself was apparently in love with a “him.”
“Explain,” he said. “Slowly.”
The other Harry conjured a chair for himself, and did. Harry thought, as he listened, that he was starting to understand, though he still would have liked to talk to Hermione to hear what she would say about this.
Apparently, there were all sorts of universes, each focused on a person. Whenever someone was born, then their universe began with them. Sometimes it stayed single, for a while. But at different points, events would “cascade,” and then there would be more than one universe—each following a different path.
“Our parents could have lived when Voldemort attacked them,” the other Harry said soberly, and Harry could see shadows of old pain in his eyes. This was someone who had been through the war, he decided cautiously, whatever else was true. “That would have been one universe. Or maybe all three of us could have died, and then that particular universe—the one that came into existence when we were born—would have died, too. Or what we know happened to us could happen, and then there would be this universe, the one where we both survived the Killing Curse.” He cast Harry a sharp glance. “You did survive the Killing Curse, right? I thought I was reaching out to a universe like mine, with a Harry Potter like me, but I wasn’t sure.”
“I did,” Harry said. The other Harry relaxed and smiled. “So some universes are more like each other than others?”
His other self—Harry was starting to think of him like that even though he knew he shouldn’t yet—nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. So universes where our parents lived would be close on the spectrum, and universes where they died would be close to each other, but not near the ones where they lived. Do you see?”
“I think so,” Harry said. It made his head hurt, but he thought he could better understand the vision of springs and tubes he’d had spiraling. Those were the alternate universes seen from outside, constantly moving, constantly changing. “How many times can events cascade?”
“An infinite number of times, as long as the events are significant enough.” The other Harry shrugged, but he was tense again, his eyes miserable. Harry frowned. Why’s that? “There are universes where we defeated Voldemort in a different way than by dying because Snape’s memories told us to and then hitting Voldemort with an Expelliarmus.” He glanced quickly at Harry, and smiled again when he nodded. “Or we didn’t defeat him. There are universes where we never found out about the Horcruxes, or where he made fewer of them. And in some of the universes, we never became friends with Ron or Hermione. Of course, all the universes go on changing and developing themselves, so a universe where we never had them as friends would be really different from the ones we live in now.”
“We’re probably dead,” Harry muttered.
“Yeah, I tend to agree.” The other Harry leaned forwards intently. “And about a year ago, there was another big event. I had an argument with Draco Malfoy.”
“Malfoy?” Harry echoed blankly.
He was about to ask something else, but his own words seemed to have unleashed a torrent of memories for the other Harry. He leaped to his feet and paced back and forth.
“I’ve wanted him for so long,” he whispered. “Ever since the war, when I realized that he’d been brave enough in his own way, and that he was the only one who still wasn’t impressed by me even though I’d become the Slayer of Voldemort. And then a year ago, I had the chance to speak to him and I—I said stupid things. It blew up into this nasty row, and ever since then, he refuses to see me, and I can’t apologize, and I can’t—I’m afraid of what would happen if I tried, because I would only say stupid things instead.” He swung around and stared appealingly at Harry. “I need to know how you solved the argument, or how you avoided it. I mean, by now you must be living happily ever after with your own version of Draco.”
Harry licked his lips and fought the temptation to bury his head in his hands. At least this shows that he really is me. I’m the only one who would mess up this sort of dimension-spanning spell this way.
“Er, not really, mate,” he said. “I haven’t seen my version of Malfoy—” he wondered when he would become used to speaking those words—“since the war.”
The other Harry stared at him. Then he turned away and collapsed onto the couch, drumming a fist into the pillows. He was swearing loudly enough that Harry still heard him even through all the cushions.
“Does that really matter?” Harry asked, when this had gone on for a while and he was staring to get impatient. “I mean, just send me back home and use the spell again to call a Harry who’s had a row and managed to get over it.” A Harry who’s gay would also be a start.
“You don’t understand,” the other version of Harry whispered, and turned over. It was fairly obvious now that he’d been crying, too. Harry barely kept from rolling his eyes in disgust. Merlin save me from ever getting like this over someone. “I can’t perform the spell again for another year, except to send you back. And in another year, Draco might be married to someone else. He’s a star Quidditch player, people throw themselves at him—” He shuddered and covered his eyes with one hand.
Harry sighed and rubbed his chin. On the one hand, he really had no obligation to this poor sod, who seemed to have created all his own problems. Harry knew that mere anger and not wanting to apologize wouldn’t have stopped him, if he was determined to patch up a row with someone he loved. And this bloke had snatched Harry away from his own universe without even thinking of the consequences.
On the other hand, Harry just about believed him, partially because of the vision he’d had before the magic snatched him and partially because he’d never told anyone else about having to see Snape’s memories before he knew how to die and defeat Voldemort. Someone could read his mind to get that information and construct a plausible explanation centered on alternate universes, but if that was the case, then Harry would find out sooner or later. He could punish the other Harry if that happened.
And he had his life settled. His friends would worry, of course, but he had the time and energy to help other people again, instead of collapsing in a wet mess.
“Listen,” he said.
The other Harry took a few deep, sniffling breaths, and then nodded to show that he was listening, after all.
“What would happen if I went to your Malfoy and apologized for the row?” Harry asked. “I can do that easily, because I don’t feel the shame and anger about it that you do. And then, once he was willing to talk to you again, you could send me back home and you could be the one to try and get him to fall in love with you.”
The other Harry froze for a moment. Then he whispered, “That’s—that’s the perfect idea. Once I tell you about the argument, and we work out other details you need to know, he’ll never know you’re not me.”
Harry managed to keep from rolling his eyes this time, but it was a struggle. This other me is a bit of a berk.
On the other hand, he couldn’t understand why Ron and Hermione had fallen in love, when they ought to have driven each other mad. How could he judge this version of himself for falling in love with Malfoy? The worst that would happen was that he would get his heart broken, and by then Harry would be safely back home and he wouldn’t know anything about it.
“Why are you so willing to help me?” the other Harry asked then, a bit of suspicion in his voice.
Harry examined him thoughtfully. Yeah, there are shadows in the back of his eyes he’s never taken care of. I wonder if the cascade that split our universes apart wasn’t the row with Malfoy, but the fact that I decided to take care of my grief and he didn’t.
“Because I can,” he said. “I think you’re silly for having a crush on Malfoy, but the reason’s none of my business. Now, are you going to tell me about this argument or not?”
As the other Harry began to describe the row in a trembling voice—trembling with happiness, Harry thought—he rubbed the back of his head and gave a wry smile. Well, here’s something to concentrate on for a while, though I doubt it’s what Ron and Hermione were envisioning for me.
Chapter Two.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Profanity, sex, some angst, mentions of suicide, and more than your recommended daily dose of philosophy. It also takes place (in both universes) after DH, but does not take account of the epilogue.
Summary: Harry has figured out several things about his life, and is feeling quietly good about himself. Naturally, this is the time he gets summoned to another universe by an alternate version of himself who’s in love with Draco Malfoy but can’t mend the breach between them. Harry agrees to apologize for the other Harry, leaving that self a free chance to win Malfoy’s affections.
Author’s Notes: This will be a thirteen-chapter story, probably around 60,000 words. The first chapter is fairly confusing, but I promise it gets clearer from there if you hang on.
Universal Chaos
“If the universe was created by God, for God’s purposes, then all the purposes we can find in it must ultimately be due to God’s purposes. But what are God’s purposes? That is something of a mystery.”—Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.
Chapter One—Harry’s Purpose
“Another one, Harry?” Tom held out a glass of butterbeer hopefully in his direction.
Harry smiled and shook his head as he pushed his chair back from his table. He never knew exactly why Tom was always so eager to see him stay in the Leaky Cauldron, other than the fact that Harry always brought a crowd of friends with him and attracted a lot of people eager to get a glimpse of “the Chosen One.”
Come to think of it, maybe that’s enough.
“No, thanks,” he said, when Tom continued to offer the glass. “I have a meeting with the Minister in the morning, and I need to get some sleep before then.” It was already almost midnight, according to the new clock that Tom had hung proudly behind the bar, and his meeting with Kingsley was at eight.
“Harry!” Ron waved frantically from the other side of the table, as though he was a mile away and Harry would somehow have trouble seeing him. “You goshing—going to enter Aursh—Auror training? Finally!” he added, for the benefit of the other people in the group. Seamus, still nursing a single mug of Firewhisky, snorted, but Dean and Neville and Terry Boot looked up in interest.
“I don’t know yet,” Harry said. “I think the Minister will offer me a place, but maybe that’s not what I want to do anymore.” He shrugged when Ron stared at him incredulously. Ron had been in Auror training for almost a year, and, according to him, it was the best thing since Hermione’s agreeing to marry him. “I had enough of chasing Dark wizards during the war.”
“N—not the sh—same,” Ron said, and then hiccoughed and passed out in the middle of the table.
Harry rolled his eyes. “You can see him home?” he asked Seamus.
“I’m seeing the rest of this lot home,” Seamus said. “What’s one more?” He smiled and waved a hand at Harry. “Good luck, mate, whatever you decide.”
Harry smiled, waved back, and ducked out of the Leaky Cauldron. Though Seamus would never replace Ron as his best friend, he was the one who had been the most understanding over the past two years as Harry worked out what he wanted and how that might have changed from the time he was in his fifth year at Hogwarts. Ron was going to become an Auror; Neville was working in Herbology; Dean had taken up training as a professional artist; Terry Boot hoped that McGonagall would manage to persuade Binns to retire so that he could become the History of Magic teacher at Hogwarts. All their adult lives seemed comfortably connected to and continuous with their childhoods.
Not for Harry.
But that wasn’t a bad thing, he thought as he wandered slowly down Diagon Alley in the direction of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. He had started staying with George after Fred’s funeral to keep an eye on him, and it had evolved into an arrangement that suited them both. Harry made sure George’s drinking and self-blame didn’t get excessive, and George didn’t ask Harry the questions about his future that he found so uncomfortable from Ron and Hermione.
Honestly, why does everyone need to know by the time they’re twenty what they’re doing for the rest of their lives? I don’t yet, that’s all. Maybe I will become an Auror, and then Ron would be worrying about nothing.
Harry lifted his head so that he could watch the stars. They were dim and distant above Diagon Alley as they were above all of London, thanks to the lights from the Muggle parts, but he could pick out a few more constellations now, thanks to paying more attention to Astronomy during his “eighth” term at Hogwarts. Orion. Draco. Sagittarius.
I made some strides. I know what I don’t want to do.
One of those things was to spend his life in endless grief. So Harry had made himself attend all the funerals, as hard as it was, even Fred’s, and then go to a Mind-Healer when he still had nightmares about Voldemort and dreams where he almost saved Remus, or Snape, or the other people who had died. It had taken more than a year and a half, and the Daily Prophet ran some stories speculating on whether Harry was mad. Harry had known that would happen. He put up with it, even though he hated it, and eventually the nightmares diminished.
He would always miss the people who had died. He didn’t see any reason to pine himself to death over them.
And he had decided, regretfully, that he didn’t want to date Ginny. There was too much of an invisible barrier between them. She’d grown up and developed other interests whilst he went to the Mind-Healers, and even if that hadn’t happened, there was that year during the war they’d spent mostly apart. Too much distance there. The things she wanted weren’t the things he wanted, except maybe a family and for the Weasleys to be happy.
Harry had decided that his life was his own, and he wasn’t willing to marry Ginny just to have children or please Molly.
Molly, and Ron, and Arthur, hadn’t been too pleased about that. But Ginny, the one who really mattered, had looked at him, given him a small smile, and started dating Dean a month later. She didn’t want to give up her life for other people, either, no matter how happy her mother would have been had she married Harry.
So Harry weathered that, too. Now both Ron and Hermione seemed to accept that Harry and Ginny wouldn’t miraculously get back together, and the rest of the Weasleys didn’t mention it except to tease them.
Harry frowned and hunched his shoulders a little against the oncoming cold. It was the thirty-first of May, but an unusually chill night for it.
What Ron and Hermione couldn’t accept was that Harry didn’t have any idea of what he wanted to do if he wasn’t going to become an Auror, or who he wanted to date if he wasn’t going to date Ginny.
“But don’t you want to do something?” That was the question Hermione always asked him, her eyes wide and her hand on his arm gentle. “You might be all right at the moment, but what will happen when you start feeling bored? You need activity and life around you, Harry. You’ve always been busy. I know a lot of people start doing poorly once they leave the structured routine of Hogwarts. I don’t want you to be one of them.”
Harry appreciated the concern, but then she would start trying to recruit him into SPEW, which had its own offices now, and he would start looking for some escape.
Ron was even worse, dropping references to Auror training into every conversation and asking whether Harry liked every pretty girl who walked past them. Their worst row had come when Ron had said that Harry should just adopt Teddy, who spent the majority of his time with Andromeda. If he didn’t want to adopt Teddy, Ron implied, then he had no reason to avoid Auror training, because a family was the only reason to do so. He wouldn’t listen to reason when Harry had pointed out that he didn’t want to take Teddy away from his grandmother, and they’d punched each other a few times over it.
Harry took an irritated breath and managed to settle his shoulders with a slight shake. That had been three weeks ago. He and Ron were friends again. He didn’t want to think about the fight now.
They were all so busy, everyone around them, still cleaning up from the war, or mourning the dead, or moving on with their lives. They seemed puzzled that Harry didn’t quite fit into any of those categories. Come to that, Harry was a bit puzzled himself, but he didn’t see a reason to be worried about it. Eventually, he’d make up his mind and move in one direction or another, choose something to do and do it.
Maybe even tomorrow, if Kingsley makes the Aurors sound attractive enough.
For right now, he liked his simple, uncrowded life: seeing Teddy three times a week so he could give Andromeda some time to herself, staying with George, having dinner often with the Weasleys, drinking with Ron and the rest of the lads on the weekends. There was no reason for him to hurry himself out of that.
As he reached the joke shop and pulled out his key to unlock the door, he looked up at the stars again. A streak of light moved across them. Harry caught his breath and smiled. Was a meteor shower starting?
No. It was something else. It had to be, because there were multiple streaks of light moving across the sky, in all directions. The stars themselves were blurring, whirling, and changing. Harry stared at them and even moved a few steps forwards, as if that would somehow make his view better, his mouth hanging open. What the fuck is happening?
The streaks of light unfolded suddenly. Now Harry watched a long series of springs or tubes coiling through space, folding back on one another and jumping apart from each other again, tumbling and rising and arching in configurations that seemed to require more than three dimensions. His eyes ached, but this was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. He couldn’t look away.
The springs collided in the air above his head, brewing together like a maelstrom. Harry caught his breath—
And then he couldn’t breathe. He flailed his arms, his lungs laboring and his eyes fluttering frantically. Not only couldn’t he breathe, he thought there was an odd weight squatting on him that was forcing him flat, squeezing him the way Side-Along Apparition did.
Then he was gone.
*
Harry opened his eyes and scrambled to his feet at once, reaching for his wand. Thankfully, given his last memory, his wand was where he had left it, in his right sleeve. Harry flicked his wrist so that it dropped into his hand and then spent a moment looking around, trying to determine where he was.
A dust-colored circle surrounded him, and shone with yellow light that rose into place like cage bars. But the circle itself was drawn on a perfectly ordinary blue carpet, and the rest of the space—four walls with portraits hung on them, chairs scattered around on the carpet, a couch with lots of cushions, a ceiling about eight feet above his head, a broom leaning in the corner—indicated a wizard’s flat. Harry blinked and relaxed a little. Did someone bring me here? Why? How was the vision I saw connected to that?
Then Harry Potter stepped up to the edge of the circle in front of him, and things got strange again.
“Who are you?” Harry asked, aiming his wand. “And don’t tell me that you’re me, because I know myself, and you’re not me.” That made sense in my head, so I’ll stick with it. Besides, it’s probably someone using Polyjuice or Transfiguration.
The other version of himself smiled wryly, just the way Harry had smiled when he hugged Ginny for the last time on the evening they discussed dating and decided to give it up. “This is harder than I thought,” he muttered. His voice was Harry’s voice. He pushed his hair away from his forehead, and there was a scar. But the scar would be there with Polyjuice, too, Harry reminded himself; he’d learned that the hard way after someone impersonated him a year ago and ran around sleeping with random star-struck women. “And there’s no easy explanation. Can you sit down?”
“On the carpet?” Harry echoed. Maybe it wasn’t a very sound test, but he wanted to see what would happen if he complained. Would his captor care about his discomfort or not?
“Oh, sorry!” The other Harry flushed the way Harry knew he would if he forgot something important, like Hermione deciding to be vegetarian, and flicked his wand. A chair sprang into being in the middle of the charmed circle. Harry sat down cautiously in it. It was made of wood, but it had a Cushioning Charm on the seat.
“What about lowering the cage bars?” he asked next.
The other Harry coughed and shifted from foot to foot—and that was the way Harry would have handled the meeting with Kingsley if Kingsley tried to press him to enter the Auror Corps. If this was an imitation, Harry had to admit reluctantly, it was a bloody good one. “I’m afraid I don’t want to do that just yet. If you refuse to help me, then you might want to attack me. And even if you don’t, then it’s easier to leave the bars up so I can send you back to your own universe. Otherwise, I’d have to start the spell all over again, and that’s a nuisance.”
“My own universe,” Harry said flatly. He was glad that he was already sitting down.
“Yes.” The other Harry edged closer and smiled at him. “I bet you saw a lot of tubes or springs spiraling through space right before you came here, right? They were probably among the stars if it was at night.” He looked embarrassed for a minute. “I wanted to cast the spell at night, but it’s tricky to tell time between the universes. It’s even tricky trying to find a universe enough like my own so that I can bring over a version of myself who would help me.” Suddenly he paled. “I say, awfully sorry if you can’t help me.”
“I still don’t understand this.” Harry tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “What the fuck kind of spell did you cast? How do I know that you aren’t someone impersonating me and trying to blackmail me or make me look like a fool?”
The other Harry’s flush shifted to one of anger. “Listen, I wouldn’t have done this if I had any choice,” he snapped. “But it’s a matter of life and death, all right? I want to spend the rest of my life with someone, and I can’t if I don’t know how our argument went in other universes, so I know the way to make it up to him.”
Harry put his head in his hands. He wasn’t actually sure what bewildered him the most out of that speech: the reference to other universes, that the anger was also a good counterfeit, or the fact that this version of himself was apparently in love with a “him.”
“Explain,” he said. “Slowly.”
The other Harry conjured a chair for himself, and did. Harry thought, as he listened, that he was starting to understand, though he still would have liked to talk to Hermione to hear what she would say about this.
Apparently, there were all sorts of universes, each focused on a person. Whenever someone was born, then their universe began with them. Sometimes it stayed single, for a while. But at different points, events would “cascade,” and then there would be more than one universe—each following a different path.
“Our parents could have lived when Voldemort attacked them,” the other Harry said soberly, and Harry could see shadows of old pain in his eyes. This was someone who had been through the war, he decided cautiously, whatever else was true. “That would have been one universe. Or maybe all three of us could have died, and then that particular universe—the one that came into existence when we were born—would have died, too. Or what we know happened to us could happen, and then there would be this universe, the one where we both survived the Killing Curse.” He cast Harry a sharp glance. “You did survive the Killing Curse, right? I thought I was reaching out to a universe like mine, with a Harry Potter like me, but I wasn’t sure.”
“I did,” Harry said. The other Harry relaxed and smiled. “So some universes are more like each other than others?”
His other self—Harry was starting to think of him like that even though he knew he shouldn’t yet—nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. So universes where our parents lived would be close on the spectrum, and universes where they died would be close to each other, but not near the ones where they lived. Do you see?”
“I think so,” Harry said. It made his head hurt, but he thought he could better understand the vision of springs and tubes he’d had spiraling. Those were the alternate universes seen from outside, constantly moving, constantly changing. “How many times can events cascade?”
“An infinite number of times, as long as the events are significant enough.” The other Harry shrugged, but he was tense again, his eyes miserable. Harry frowned. Why’s that? “There are universes where we defeated Voldemort in a different way than by dying because Snape’s memories told us to and then hitting Voldemort with an Expelliarmus.” He glanced quickly at Harry, and smiled again when he nodded. “Or we didn’t defeat him. There are universes where we never found out about the Horcruxes, or where he made fewer of them. And in some of the universes, we never became friends with Ron or Hermione. Of course, all the universes go on changing and developing themselves, so a universe where we never had them as friends would be really different from the ones we live in now.”
“We’re probably dead,” Harry muttered.
“Yeah, I tend to agree.” The other Harry leaned forwards intently. “And about a year ago, there was another big event. I had an argument with Draco Malfoy.”
“Malfoy?” Harry echoed blankly.
He was about to ask something else, but his own words seemed to have unleashed a torrent of memories for the other Harry. He leaped to his feet and paced back and forth.
“I’ve wanted him for so long,” he whispered. “Ever since the war, when I realized that he’d been brave enough in his own way, and that he was the only one who still wasn’t impressed by me even though I’d become the Slayer of Voldemort. And then a year ago, I had the chance to speak to him and I—I said stupid things. It blew up into this nasty row, and ever since then, he refuses to see me, and I can’t apologize, and I can’t—I’m afraid of what would happen if I tried, because I would only say stupid things instead.” He swung around and stared appealingly at Harry. “I need to know how you solved the argument, or how you avoided it. I mean, by now you must be living happily ever after with your own version of Draco.”
Harry licked his lips and fought the temptation to bury his head in his hands. At least this shows that he really is me. I’m the only one who would mess up this sort of dimension-spanning spell this way.
“Er, not really, mate,” he said. “I haven’t seen my version of Malfoy—” he wondered when he would become used to speaking those words—“since the war.”
The other Harry stared at him. Then he turned away and collapsed onto the couch, drumming a fist into the pillows. He was swearing loudly enough that Harry still heard him even through all the cushions.
“Does that really matter?” Harry asked, when this had gone on for a while and he was staring to get impatient. “I mean, just send me back home and use the spell again to call a Harry who’s had a row and managed to get over it.” A Harry who’s gay would also be a start.
“You don’t understand,” the other version of Harry whispered, and turned over. It was fairly obvious now that he’d been crying, too. Harry barely kept from rolling his eyes in disgust. Merlin save me from ever getting like this over someone. “I can’t perform the spell again for another year, except to send you back. And in another year, Draco might be married to someone else. He’s a star Quidditch player, people throw themselves at him—” He shuddered and covered his eyes with one hand.
Harry sighed and rubbed his chin. On the one hand, he really had no obligation to this poor sod, who seemed to have created all his own problems. Harry knew that mere anger and not wanting to apologize wouldn’t have stopped him, if he was determined to patch up a row with someone he loved. And this bloke had snatched Harry away from his own universe without even thinking of the consequences.
On the other hand, Harry just about believed him, partially because of the vision he’d had before the magic snatched him and partially because he’d never told anyone else about having to see Snape’s memories before he knew how to die and defeat Voldemort. Someone could read his mind to get that information and construct a plausible explanation centered on alternate universes, but if that was the case, then Harry would find out sooner or later. He could punish the other Harry if that happened.
And he had his life settled. His friends would worry, of course, but he had the time and energy to help other people again, instead of collapsing in a wet mess.
“Listen,” he said.
The other Harry took a few deep, sniffling breaths, and then nodded to show that he was listening, after all.
“What would happen if I went to your Malfoy and apologized for the row?” Harry asked. “I can do that easily, because I don’t feel the shame and anger about it that you do. And then, once he was willing to talk to you again, you could send me back home and you could be the one to try and get him to fall in love with you.”
The other Harry froze for a moment. Then he whispered, “That’s—that’s the perfect idea. Once I tell you about the argument, and we work out other details you need to know, he’ll never know you’re not me.”
Harry managed to keep from rolling his eyes this time, but it was a struggle. This other me is a bit of a berk.
On the other hand, he couldn’t understand why Ron and Hermione had fallen in love, when they ought to have driven each other mad. How could he judge this version of himself for falling in love with Malfoy? The worst that would happen was that he would get his heart broken, and by then Harry would be safely back home and he wouldn’t know anything about it.
“Why are you so willing to help me?” the other Harry asked then, a bit of suspicion in his voice.
Harry examined him thoughtfully. Yeah, there are shadows in the back of his eyes he’s never taken care of. I wonder if the cascade that split our universes apart wasn’t the row with Malfoy, but the fact that I decided to take care of my grief and he didn’t.
“Because I can,” he said. “I think you’re silly for having a crush on Malfoy, but the reason’s none of my business. Now, are you going to tell me about this argument or not?”
As the other Harry began to describe the row in a trembling voice—trembling with happiness, Harry thought—he rubbed the back of his head and gave a wry smile. Well, here’s something to concentrate on for a while, though I doubt it’s what Ron and Hermione were envisioning for me.
Chapter Two.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:54 am (UTC)Harry's idea is probably a lot closer to the truth- at least if the other Harry is right about their universes being close to each other.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 02:56 pm (UTC)This one is a really engaging topic too: parallel universes, a confident Harry, Quidditch!Draco (YUM!!) Will look forward to the unfolding as always. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 02:57 pm (UTC)Hmmm. Many questions, and only time will tell. :)
Random
Date: 2009-06-03 07:31 am (UTC)Re: Random
Date: 2009-06-03 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:55 am (UTC)Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:56 am (UTC)The cast of characters is rather restricted, at least at first, because Harry 2 is fairly anxious not to have other people know that he actually summoned someone from another universe because he couldn't get up the guts to make the apology himself.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 07:29 pm (UTC)LOL! Most Harry's would never notice that. We'll see if Harry is more annoyed by his other self or by Malfoy. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:56 am (UTC)And that's going to be a race.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 07:35 pm (UTC)Lilith
x
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:57 am (UTC)Universal Chaos
Date: 2009-06-02 07:36 pm (UTC)Thanks
Licelli
Re: Universal Chaos
Date: 2009-06-04 01:57 am (UTC)There will be a third part in the Two Hunters arc following Viper, called The Long-Desired. Don't know when it will be posted, though.
Re: Universal Chaos
Date: 2009-06-06 02:52 pm (UTC)As for Universal Chaos, I am curious to see how you deal with the paradox of the two Harrys...maybe the introduction of a New Draco?...nah, too pat. Hmmm - as Ollivander said - curious, very curious.
Licelli
I'm a fanfiction addict, and proud
Date: 2009-06-02 08:30 pm (UTC)who came forth with a new story-and had as many outstanding
fics as you currently have-I'd be seriously wondering who
would get screwed over, but since it's *you*, you "just
go 'head with your bad self..."
NOTE:My current favorite fanfic(*) is a story of yours called'
"Their Pheonix". When I first found it I was warned that it
would not be updated on a regular basis, so I just assumed
I'd have to wait 3-6 months for the next chapter. I went
out of town for a WEEK and I found 3 chapters waiting for
me!
To conclude: SQEEE!
(*)From ANY fanfic author!
Re: I'm a fanfiction addict, and proud
Date: 2009-06-03 03:06 pm (UTC)Re: I'm a fanfiction addict, and proud
Date: 2009-06-04 01:58 am (UTC)Luckily, I only have an epilogue left on one of the outstanding works.
And a new chapter of 'Their Phoenix' should be up on Friday!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:59 am (UTC)Well, Harry didn't really have a choice about being brought to this dimension, only a choice about what happened once he arrived. And what he'll choose to do, as circumstances change, is something of an open question.
And yeah, sorry. I definitely can't see doing a threesome in this story.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 09:14 am (UTC)But couldn't he have demanded that wet noodle Harry send him right back to his own world? Or would they also have had to wait a year for that? (Maybe the world/dimension hopping premise has confuzzled me a bit after all ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 02:00 am (UTC)And, well, he would probably find it easier to do the job if his other self was more forthcoming, as you'll see in the next chapter.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 09:34 am (UTC)More! More! More! err... pretty please?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 02:30 pm (UTC)I was a little confused to start with, but I think I get it now *crosses fingers*
Can't wait to see how this pans out.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:14 am (UTC)I always wondered what would happen if Harry Potter was mixed with Chrestomance. ^^ Harry helping Harry to get Draco sounds just like love. ^^
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 02:02 am (UTC)And thanks! Although it may not work out that way.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 05:03 am (UTC)I agree. It reminds me a little of the cliche clone plot where the clone is the dumber version of the original. I find that extremely endearing, though, I wonder what this dimension's Draco think of that.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 10:38 am (UTC)This is just... this is just... I have no words...
The other Harry is just soo... Harry in a different way than Harry is Harry *gets headache* Argh! Well, isn't this a study of the nuances of characterization? XD
Looking forward to the next chapter!
By the way, will a part of this story take place when Harry gets home to his own universe?