Despite holding a knife to his chest with every intention of driving it into his own heart, Harry was not actually suicidal.
It was just that, with the last of his wives choosing to pass on a few decades ago, he had nobody left to convince him that certain magical experiments were best not attempted. Plus, he was very, very bored. It came with the territory of being somewhere between six and seven hundred years old.
This temporal ritual was either going to succeed, hurling his mind and soul back into the body of his childhood self, or it was going to fail and just kill him. There was also the third option that the multiverse theory is wrong, in which case the universe was going to be very annoyed with him and possibly erase him from existence.
But he hadn't become the most powerful wizard to have ever lived by being a wuss! The knife plunged through his ribs and into his heart, powering the complex ritual. Thus was Harry Black, Child of Prophecy, Savior and Destroyer of the World, sent screaming back through time.
XXXXX
Harry Potter waved at his family as the Hogwarts Express left the station. The Potters were the largest family there (the Weasleys being late as usual), boasting five children, not including himself.
Harry was kind of responsible for that.
The ancient soul of Harry Black had crashed into the not-yet-born soul of Harry Potter on July 16th 1980, instantly triggering an early childbirth due to stress. That definitely hadn't been the plan, but considering that he'd never had to calculate the temporal trajectory of an untested ritual, it wasn't a bad result.
And seeing as Harry Black had been born on July 31st in the year 2000, it was multiverse theory confirmed.
Being born early meant that the prophecy didn't apply to him, which meant no Voldemort visits on Halloween, which meant his parents surviving, which meant that they would definitely eventually notice that their son was unusually alert and focused for a toddler.
Harry had gotten around this problem by distracting them. A subtle little enchantment on their marriage bed resulted in constant simmering lust for each other, as well forgetfulness in regards to contraception.
Now they were just glad that their firstborn was so responsible and well-behaved and didn't add to their workload, instead helping to take care of his siblings. More than once he had been tempted to simply tell them that he was a time traveler, but the thought of breaking their hearts with the truth that their 'little boy' had never existed always stayed his hand.
You wouldn't think his ancient, cynical arsehole self would hesitate, but he wasn't really Harry Black anymore. The body belonged to the local Harry Potter and the soul already occupying it was pure and raw and so very young. The loss of his parents had been an old and well-healed wound for Harry Black, but the infant Harry Potter had just spent nine months in the womb and was blindly grasping to regain his mother's warmth.
As it turns out, newborns are not known for their robust emotional strength and the addition of more than six centuries of life experience all at once was not a fun time. In the same way that the Cruciatus wasn't a fun time.
James and Lily Potter had been freaking out when their newborn son oscillated between crying as if he was being tortured and near catatonia for the first few days. Fortunately, Harry Black had moved beyond the limitations of flesh and he'd eventually mustered enough will and focus to Occlumency his way to some kind of rationality, but by then he'd been hopelessly emotionally attached to his parents.
He didn't really mind, though. It was an interesting new experience to have parents and siblings (which he didn't feel guilty at all about indirectly helping create), and new experiences had been in short supply for quite a while.
Even if being a kid again was a little frustrating at times. For man over six hundred years old, seventeen years of patience before he would be considered an adult again was nothing.
His thoughts were interrupted by the cabin door sliding open.
"Hello, can I sit here?" The bushy-haired little girl asked.
Her diction was clear and precise and a normal eleven-year-old would never have picked up on the anxious undercurrent, but he was definitely not normal. She looked vaguely familiar in the way that most everything in this new life had looked vaguely familiar. The perils of time travel.
"Certainly." He invited and drew his fake wand (really just a transfigured stick. His real wand would only see use as evidence that he definitely hadn't cast that spell, Mr. Auror sir). "Let me help you with that trunk."
"Wingardium Leviosa." He barely remembered to verbalize the spell and the trunk gently levitated to the luggage compartment.
"You've been practicing ahead as well!" She gasped in delight. "I've tried a few of the spells in our textbooks. They've all worked for me, of course."
Of course, she says. Harry was amused. If he wasn't a time traveler, he would have taken her statement as arrogance, but the rapid babble was quite clearly a desperate attempt to make a good impression by someone who had little to no idea how to interact with her peers.
She seemed to be operating under the mistaken belief that wizard children would be naturally studious and eager to master their gifts. What a disappointment she was heading towards.
"I'm Harry Potter, nice to meet you." He introduced himself, holding out his hand.
She flushed in embarrassment at her unintentional rudeness and once again rushed to speak as if afraid that someone would cut her off. "I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger."
The name finally jogged his memory of the girl from his past life. The troll pancake girl. No wonder it took him so long to place her.
"Pleasure to meet you." He said smoothly, deciding to make her embarrassment worse by kissing her hand instead of shaking it.
It worked and she stammered incoherently for a while. He distinctly recalled finding her annoying the first go around and it was hard to imagine why at the moment. Then again, he had been a prickly little shit the first go around, hadn't he?
"So, I'm guessing you're new to the magical world?" Harry asked.
"I'm a muggleborn if that's what you mean." Hermione answered curiously. "How did you know?"
She must not have had any run-ins with any of the more dickish purebloods yet. She'd have been instantly defensive otherwise.
"If you'd grown up in the magical world, then having someone kiss your hand wouldn't have surprised you that much." He replied drily. "As you might have noticed, the magical world has a slightly different culture."
"It's not that different." She protested.
"It is." He refuted. "Don't let the same language and similar accent fool you – the various magical enclaves hiding inside the normal world are effectively entirely different nations. They have their own governments and their own cultures. The best comparison would be a country like Luxemburg that could have been part of Germany or France, but isn't – except even smaller."
"I suppose that makes sense." Hermione conceded after taking half a minute to think about it. "Why do you keep calling it the normal world? I thought wizards called non-magicals muggles?"
"Because 'muggle' is an insult from a few centuries back, basically means 'unwashed idiot'. And if I'm going to insult someone I prefer to do it on purpose." Harry snorted in amusement at her offended face. "See, up until very recently, the difference in living standard and general education between magicals and normals was huge, so wizards got used to feeling superior. And if something sticks around long enough, it just becomes a fact of life. Basically nobody remembers anymore that it's even an insult, so don't hold it against them too much."
"How do you know it's an insult, then?" She challenged.
"I know everything." He asserted casually.
Hermione gaped at the ridiculous claim. "You can't know everything!"
"Try me."
XXXXX
Hermione sat anxiously at the Gryffindor table, waiting for Harry to be sorted. She hoped he would be sorted into Gryffindor as well.
She wasn't sure if they were friends already, but they had spent the whole train ride talking and she had enjoyed it. He was really smart and polite and everything she had hoped to find in the wizarding world.
And despite her best efforts to debunk his claim of knowing everything, he really did seem to. Questions on magic, the Hogwarts curriculum, history, professors, exams, higher year electives were all answered with too much surety and detail to be made up.
Once she ran out of questions about the school, she broadened it to the wider magical world. Its culture, government, economy and so on. Again, he seemed to know everything, even though some of his answers were definitely not what she had expected. They reminded her more of her dad when he was complaining about the government.
Not willing to give up, she had started asking questions about math, science, geography, biology and so on, topics which she knew that she was ahead of her age group in, but he once again proved unstumpable.
It wasn't until she started asking him about the plots of some of the fiction books she read that she eventually found one he couldn't summarize, which he decried as cheating. According to him, Pride and Prejudice was a 'boring, overhyped piece of literary trash'. She had taken serious offense to him besmirching such a well-known classic, especially since he hadn't even read it himself.
Not enough offense to stop talking to him, because it would be ridiculous to do that based on their clashing opinions of recreational literature, but still! Hermione wished she could at least be smug about her 'victory', but the ridiculous amount of knowledge he had and refused to divulge the source of drove her up the wall.
She wanted him in Gryffindor as much out of the hope that they were friends as she did out of a desire to learn his secrets.
Neville Longbottom's turn under the Sorting Hat came and went with barely a break in her furious thinking. If she hadn't met Harry, she was sure that the Boy-Who-Lived would have drawn more interest from her, but a child celebrity and magical mystery turned out to be far less interesting than someone who should have been a peer, yet apparently possessed more knowledge than a library.
"Harry Potter!" Professor McGonagall finally called out.
Harry walked to the middle of the hall with what seemed to be unreal confidence. Hermione recalled how nervous she had been when it was her turn, and how nervous everyone else had looked. Some had tried to put on a confident act, but it was thin and transparent compared to the almost arrogantly casual swagger with which Harry walked to the stool.
At least it gave her hope that with that kind of courage, the Hat would put him into Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw.
"Eh?!"
The baffled sputter from the Sorting Hat silenced the low mutter of conversation in Great Hall.
"Is there a problem, Floppy?" Headmaster Dumbledore asked in concern.
Hermione mouthed 'Floppy?' to herself with incredulity as she watched the drama unfold.
"Erm, no. Not at all, Headmaster." The Sorting Hat said with an audibly strained tone. "GRYFFINDOR!"
Harry, confidence undimmed by the unusual sorting and the attention focused on him, calmly took the hat off and placed it back on the stool before sauntering towards the Gryffindor table and sitting down next to her.
Hermione stared at him, willing him to explain just what in the world that had been, but he merely stared back with those knowing green eyes that kept taunting her with knowledge she desperately wanted to have.
"What?" He asked.
The entire Great Hall jerked as if they'd been in a trance and McGonagall called out the next student.
Hermione swore that she would figure him out.
XXXXX
"I'm sure you're wondering why I called you here, Harry my boy." Dumbledore said with a smile and a grandfatherly twinkle in his eye.
"No, I do believe I know exactly why you called me here, Albus my boy." Harry retorted with the exact same tone and twinkle. That was quite a feat to pull off in an eleven-year-old body. "The Sorting Hat can't tell you what it saw in my head, so you thought you'd take a peek yourself, but the false mind overlaying my true consciousness is bamboozling you."
"… Who are you?" The grandfatherly persona vanished like spring dew in the morning sunlight.
"Harry Potter." He grinned. "But in my previous life I was Harry Black, the oldest and most powerful wizard to have ever lived."
There had never been any chance of truly remaining unnoticed, and it sounded too exhausting to be worth trying. Getting Dumbledore in on it was the path of least resistance.
"… Reincarnation?" Dumbledore ventured.
"Still quick on the uptake despite being so decrepit, eh?" Harry chuckled. "The ritual I used was supposed to send me back in time. I wasn't supposed to merge with my younger self in the womb, but shit happens."
He deliberately didn't mention that it wasn't in the same parallel reality.
"Was Voldemort defeated in your timeline?" The headmaster didn't bother questioning the words like a lesser wizard might.
"It's really sad how much time the people of this era spend worrying about that pissant." Harry sighed in disappointment.
"Please, if you know the key to defeating him permanently, you must tell me." Dumbledore insisted.
"Young people are always so impatient." Harry complained. "And cut it out with the compulsion magic, it's neither cute nor subtle."
Harry deliberately flexed his full might, making the room tremble and seem claustrophobically small. Dumbledore's eyes went wide and he seemed for the first time to be truly comprehending what he was faced with.
"My apologies." He said. "My excitement got the better of me."
"Yes." Harry acknowledged magnanimously. "Anyway, I can indeed tell you about his silly horcruxes, but first we need to talk about my time in Hogwarts."
"Horcruxes? More than one?" Dumbledore's tone was horrified.
"You really need to keep your mind focused on the task at hand, my boy." He again affected Dumbledore's patented grandfatherly tone. "If we don't come to an agreement for my time in these hallowed halls of learning, then things might get a bit… chaotic."
"Well, that depends on what you wish to accomplish at this fine institution." The headmaster said affably, shifting gears with the mental dexterity a powerful wizard needed to cultivate. "For most of our students, it would be to attain an education, but I imagine that we have little left to teach you."
"You imagine correctly." Harry nodded. "Originally, I was just going to drift aimlessly until I found something to do."
And keep a distant eye on the local analogues of his wives. Not to get involved with them. It would be a great disservice and insult to the spirits of his own Luna, Fleur and Dora if he went looking for replacements. They were gone and would not be coming back.
Still, there was nothing wrong with making sure that the lives of the local versions were happy.
"But you found such a reason already." Dumbledore guessed, smiling happily. "Young Miss Granger?"
"She was flattened by a troll in my first year, so I have no idea what she'd have grown up to be." Harry generously elaborated. "The local one is intelligent – if in a rather narrow sense – and I always did hate wasted potential. I'll be taking her on as an apprentice to make sure that she gets taught properly."
"That can be arranged." Dumbledore hummed, not reacting to the none-too-subtle dig at Hogwarts' educational standards. "Do you wish to be exempt from class altogether, or do you intend to attend as if you were normal students?"
"We will attend as normal – unless I don't feel like it – but without the homework or exams and we will disregard class assignments as I see fit. Also, no detentions or other punishments. If Hermione needs disciplining I will handle it myself."
There were still some lessons to be learned from a classroom setting, just not necessarily the ones that the teachers were trying to convey.
"So, effectively, you wish to be given leave to do whatever you want." Dumbledore summarized.
"I could teach you the ritual I used as compensation." Harry offered. "A do over for your life. You could stop Grindelwald before he really got started, or guide him down a different path. Ariana wouldn't have to die or suffer. Your father wouldn't have to go to Azkaban. Your brother wouldn't be so angry at you. Tom Riddle need not become Voldemort."
Dumbledore had gone still as a statue. "Your ritual allows for changes to be made to the timeline?"
"Yes." Harry lied. "The ritual ejects the caster's soul from their body and moves it outside the timestream to avert temporal paradox. The effect persists after merging with your younger self, allowing for changes to be made without the universe 'correcting' you."
Lies. Merging with your younger immediately causes the timeline to split off into a new fork, but Dumbledore would never notice the difference because Harry had since recalibrated the ritual to narrow down the dimensional variance.
"If I can make changes to the timeline, then you may never be." Dumbledore pointed out.
"I also exist outside the timestream." Harry lied some more. "It can't erase me. Events will arrange themselves to allow for my existence no matter what."
Yes, in this timeline, where the time travelling Dumbledore would have no influence.
Dumbledore went quiet for a long minute before replying. "I will have to think on your offer, but I will provisionally agree to allow you free reign of the school, as I suspect you would do as you wish anyway. Should I summon Miss Granger so that we can explain your offer of an apprenticeship to her?
"Might be for the best." Harry contemplated. "She's struck me as a bit of a social pariah, so she'd probably think I'm playing a prank on her."
Also entirely too trusting of authority. That would need to go. As far as Hermione was concerned for the next couple of decades, the only authority that she had to worry about was called Harry Potter.
XXXXX
"Where are we going?" Hermione asked her master as she hurried after him.
The last couple of months had been a bit surreal. Finding out that she was a witch paled in comparison to finding out that the incredibly smart friend she'd made on the train was actually an ancient time-travelling wizard that wanted to take her on as an apprentice.
She'd agreed, of course she had agreed. It was quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and even Headmaster Dumbledore had vouched for the veracity of it. Harry said he could make her the most powerful witch to have ever lived, claimed he could teach her things that she couldn't even imagine.
Hermione had always been insatiably curious and being singled out as special felt good in ways that was hard to put into words. She'd always stood out from among her peers, but generally not in a good way.
Being told that she was a witch had let her feel smug about leaving behind all the dull, mundane children that had teased her for being smart. Being chosen to become an apprentice to someone as powerful as Harry let her feel smug when surrounded by the disappointing reality of magical children. For some reason that she could not recall anymore, she had expected that having magic would make children less… childish.
"Quirrel has so graciously brought us a troll to practice on. It would be wasteful to miss out on the opportunity." Harry replied, not slowing down at all.
Of course, there were downsides to being Harry's apprentice.
"A troll?!" Hermione exclaimed with some fear. "What do we need to practice on a troll?!"
"Your combat abilities, of course."
And there it was. Harry's teachings tended to be a little more 'hands on' than normal schooling. It brought to mind all those martial arts movies her dad liked to watch, where the mysterious master made the apprentice jump through all kinds of hoops to teach them some obscure lesson.
"But I don't want to fight." Hermione knew that she was whining, but she didn't care. This was worse than flying lessons or PE.
"It is better to be a warrior in a library than a librarian in a war." The very old man in the body of a child said sagely. "Ah, here we are."
The foul stench assaulted her nose with such force that she was momentarily tempted to check if it was broken. With magic involved, it wouldn't even be impossible for a smell to break bone and this one was certainly bad enough for it.
It was coming from a girl's bathroom. Hermione made a mental note to never use that one again.
"How am I supposed to fight a troll?" Hermione tried one last brave protest. "I barely know any spells."
"Know yourself and know your enemy, and you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles." Harry continued with the same sage tone.
"Are you quoting Sun Tzu?" She'd never read the Art of War herself, but that sounded like Sun Tzu.
"What do you know about your enemy?" Harry ignored her question.
Hermione panicked a little at the sudden pop quiz. She hadn't studied trolls yet! In desperation, she resorted to popular fictional depictions of trolls. "They're big, strong and stupid. And they can regenerate. Fire or acid will temporarily stop them from regenerating."
She'd done a lot of fantasy fiction reading since learning that she was a witch the previous September.
"And what do you know about yourself?" Harry made no comment about her knowledge of trolls, so it was presumably sufficient.
"I'm a twelve-year-old witch with less than two months of magical education. I don't know any fire or acid spells."
"Sounds like you shouldn't fight troll head on, then." Harry hinted.
"I shouldn't be fighting trolls at all!" Hermione shrieked at him in rising panic.
"You also shouldn't give away your position by yelling." He countered. "Better think fast~, trolls love the taste of little girls and I don't mean that sexually."
Hermione wasn't sure whether that was more or less horrifying.
As the troll burst out of the bathroom with a gurgling roar, she decided that being turned into lunch was definitely less horrifying than… that. The lumbering brute looked even more disgusting than it smelled, somehow.
Hermione let out a very ungryffindor-ish shriek of terror and ran away.
"Good choice." Harry complimented, floating in the air alongside her like some stupid advisor fairy. "When faced with an opponent of greater physical ability, getting some distance is always a good idea. The troll has a very large stride, though, so I would suggest obstructing its footing if you don't want it to catch up."
Hermione risked a look behind and saw that it was indeed catching up despite its lumbering gait. Her mind latched on to Harry's words. Obstruct its footing. How was she supposed to do that?
"There's nothing here to obstruct it with!" She risked shouting. This wasn't one of the hallways lined with suits of armor or anything else of that nature.
"You're a witch, aren't you?" Harry pointed out. "Transfigure the floor."
"I don't know how to do that!" The only kinds of transfiguration they had done in class was tiny stuff like matchsticks into needles, and Harry had randomly pulled her out of class so she hadn't even been present for all the lessons.
She was going to die with holes in her otherwise perfect academic record!
Wait, that's not important right now!
"Reshaping material is easier than changing one thing into another." Harry was still infuriatingly calm. "The spell you want is Stone Spikes."
"THAT'S NOT A REAL SPELL!" Hermione shouted at him.
"Words give shape to your thoughts and intent. Use the wand motion for a transfiguration while yelling 'Stone Spikes' and focusing on the result you want." He advised.
Too desperate to argue against the advice, Hermione spun around and jabbed her wand at the floor and gave it a little twirl, focusing with all her might on the image of stone spikes growing out of the floor.
"Stone Spikes!" She yelled, willing this to work.
The floor became spiky and the troll, clumsy brute that it was, immediately tripped and faceplanted on the newly made death trap. Hermione recoiled at the disgusting squelch.
"Not bad." Harry commented, floating down to the ground and casually executing the still living troll with a thin beam of fire right to its head. "Of course, Hogwarts herself helped you out a bit, but not bad for a newbie. You've got pretty good mental focus for your age."
Hermione launched herself at him with a shriek of rage. Now that the terror and the adrenaline rush was past, all she could feel was anger at him for putting her through that.
"It's a bit early for you to be trying to strike me down with all your anger, young Skywalker." He said, holding out a finger and instantly freezing her in place. "You still have much to learn of the Dark Side."
And that was when Hermione began wondering if maybe, just maybe, the ancient time travelling wizard was not a terribly nice person.
XXXXX
"My father will hear about this!" Malfoy's exclamation contained more than a bit of wobble. Perhaps even the beginnings of a sniffle if you listened closely.
Harry merely grinned as the blonde boy slammed the door of the booth shut and stomped off.
Hermione stared at him with wide eyes.
"Wasn't that a bit… much?" She ventured cautiously. "I know he's unpleasant, but…"
The Malfoy scion had begun making a nuisance of himself some time after the start of the new year, having apparently finally noticed that she and Harry were being given special treatment by the teachers. His attempts to find out why that was mostly consisted of petty insults, much of them re-used from his verbal scuffles with the Boy-Who-Lived.
"This is also part of your education." Harry said. "You'll eventually need to learn how to verbally flay people and Malfoy was so kind as to volunteer."
"But I don't want to learn how to do that!" Hermione protested. It was too much like bullying for her tastes. Before Hogwarts, she had been the one on the receiving end of verbal abuse and didn't want to be anything like her old bullies.
Malfoy had opened their booth on the Hogwarts Express with his usual bluster and started boasting about something or other, only to quickly lose steam when Harry started reciting his failures, his family's failures, the grim future that awaited them, the graphic descriptions of what would happen to his mother once his father was no longer around…
It had been more than a little horrifying.
"The apprentice doesn't get to decide what she needs to learn." Harry countered. "Do you want little pissants like him to be able to talk circles around you?"
"Well, no, but-"
"He's pretty useless right now, but he's going to grow up eventually and you can bet that he's getting an education on how to be a professional arsewipe."
Hermione was quiet for a little while, then timidly asked the question burning in her brain. She was afraid to ask Harry questions these days. Not because he would get angry or refuse to answer, but because he would answer. In excruciating detail.
"Was that what happened in your past life?"
"Not exactly." Harry chuckled, fondness coloring the sound. "His father tried to kill me in my fourth year, so I made a public spectacle of killing him. Then I took his mother as my mistress and fucked her until she way loyal to me. Stupid little prat went running to Voldie to get revenge, which ended up getting him killed as well. To comfort Narcissa for the loss of her useless son, I gave her a new child, one that was raised properly."
Hermione wished she hadn't asked, curse her curiosity.
"Why do they hate us so much, the purebloods?" She asked to escape the lurid topic.
"They're feeling threatened." Harry shrugged. "You first generation magicals are pouring into their secluded little world in ever greater numbers and they're seeing their culture being diluted bit by bit. It's a valid concern, but they're too stupid to even consciously identify the problem, much less find a sensible solution to it."
This was a bit outside the range of Hermione's concerns. She just wanted to study hard and become a good witch, but Harry had outright admitted that he was forcing her to grow up faster.
"But we don't want to change their world, we just want a place in it." She argued, although she wasn't sure how true that was. There were things about the wizarding world that she didn't like too much.
"And who are you to demand a place in someone else's world?" Harry countered. "I told you on the train ride to Hogwarts, didn't I? Don't treat the wizarding world as an extension of the mundane one. Would Japan let you immigrate just because you demanded it? Should it?"
"Well, no, but…" Hermione scrunched her face in concentration as she tried to find a way to argue her position. As frustrating as it was to feel strongly about something and not know how to articulate it, there was a part of her that also relished the challenge. It was a lot different than memorizing facts out of a book and reciting them, which Harry had all but forbidden her from doing.
"…But if they don't want us here, then why send out Hogwarts invitations!" It came out as a triumphant exclamation more than a question.
"Because they need you." Harry grinned in approval. "There are less than three thousand wizards and witches in the British Isles. Most of the noble families and a good chunk of the common ones only have one child to keep the lines of succession simple. Without an infusion of new blood, they're heading towards extinction and they know this on a visceral level."
"So they need us, but they don't want us?" Hermione scowled.
"It's not quite that simple." He chuckled. "You have idiots like Malfoy who refuse to see that they need you, and definitely don't want you. On the other end of the spectrum you have idiots like my godfather, Sirius Black, who would destroy the culture he grew up in out of sheer spite for his family."
Sirius Black was the last surviving member of the Black family to still carry the name, and a notorious philanderer. One of Malfoy's past attempts to rattle Harry had been the accusation that the Black family had died out of shame from being related to Sirius.
Harry had responded by wondering aloud – seemingly to himself – whether Lucius Malfoy's knees ever gave him trouble from all that groveling he'd done to Voldemort.
"You call your own godfather an idiot?" Hermione asked, bewildered.
"What else would you call a man that never considers the consequences of his actions?" Harry shrugged. "Even if he's family, he's still an idiot."
It was hard to dispute that. Sirius Black did seem a little irresponsible. He'd sent Harry a box of prank supplies for Christmas, with a note advising him to 'let those snakes have it'. It was an odd gift for an ancient wizard to receive.
"Wait, does your family even know that you're a time travelling wizard?" She had assumed they did and hadn't felt like she and Harry were close enough for her to pry into his personal relationships, but months had passed since then.
"Of course not, it would upset them to know that I'm not their 'precious little boy'." Harry answered calmly. "Reincarnating into your own past self fucks with your soul something awful. I would not recommend it unless you're feeling very bored."
"But… you taught Professor Dumbledore how to do it." Hermione said slowly. "You said he would perform it this summer."
"What Dumbledore doesn't know won't inconvenience me." He replied, still in that same very calm voice. "I had to get the old man on board somehow or he'd keep trying to control me. People always end up dead when they try that and then things start getting out of hand and before you know it you're a Dark Lord."
"You could just… obey the rules?" She suggested weakly, disturbed by the reminder that her master was not a nice man.
Harry laughed, a genuinely amused sound that sent chills down her spine. "Hah! That's a good one. Anyway, we got a bit sidetracked there. We were talking about the dilemma of being an outsider in the magical world. The ancestors of the modern day idiot pureblood built it, so they have every right to not want you in it. At the same time, you are welcomed by a clear majority of the population, it's merely unfortunate that the ones who aren't welcoming have a lot of political power. How would you solve this conundrum, Hermione Granger?"
"I don't know." She finally conceded unhappily. It was hard to admit that even jerks like Draco Malfoy were entitled to their beliefs, but it had been pointed out to her in the past that she was a rather opinionated girl herself, so she couldn't just say he was wrong and that he should be disregarded.
"You will."
… Why did that sound so ominous?
XXXXX
Harry walked through King's Cross Station at a leisurely pace at the side of his family. This year, his biggest little sister, Rose, would be joining him in Hogwarts. She was quite excited to be going to school with her awesome big brother (her own words).
But she wasn't the only girl that he was keeping an eye on. There was of course Hermione, his amusing little apprentice. She was just so hilariously strait-laced, she always tried to find the moral solution to every problem he posed her. He was actually running a little bet against himself on how long it would take before she figured out that any problem created by people could be solved by removing people, and that respecting the opinions of those beneath you was a waste of time and effort.
And there she was now, accompanied by a tall man with thinning hair and a woman with hair as frizzy as hers.
"Ah, there's Hermione." Harry pointed out. "Let's go greet her."
His parents paused in their wrangling of the Potter brood, the once more pregnant Lily looking visibly exhausted. Maybe he should take that lust/fertility enchantment off their marriage bed?
Nah. A healthy sex life was essential for a healthy marriage and don't let any pseudo-spiritualist quack tell you otherwise. Besides, it wasn't like they were upset with having so many children.
"Ooh, Harry's girlfriend!" Sirius exclaimed like the man-child he was, rubbing his hands like a cartoon villain.
Having no family of his own, he'd basically been annexed by the Potters. After the tragic death of Peter Pettigrew, they had all pulled together in their grief.
Who knew that crows could be so dangerous to rat animagi? They ripped the wand right out of Poor Wormtail's hand and then pecked him to death. Nobody knew what had set them off, but they sure did earn the right to call themselves a murder. Yes, it was very mysterious.
In any case, 'Uncle Sirius, but not serious' delighted in being that one family member that taught children inappropriate things.
"No, Uncle Sirius, I remembered your advice." Harry shook his head seriously. "Wait until the birds grow up a bit before you commit, that way you have a wider selection when you're old enough to appreciate it."
And just like that, Sirius was subjected to the burning gaze of an irate, pregnant redhead. Not a creature to be crossed lightly.
Still, they approached the Grangers. Hermione noticed them approaching and went a bit pale, apparently expecting something terrible to happen.
"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Granger." James Potter greeted gregariously. "I think your daughter and our son are friends. We're the Potters."
"Oh, yes, Hermione did write us about your Harry." The adult female Granger said in delight. "She had nothing but good things to say about him."
Of course she did, Harry had been monitoring her mail to make sure that she didn't let slip any problematic information.
"Hermione." He said with a smile. "Had a good summer?"
"Yes." She replied, not quite cautious, but definitely wondering what he was up to.
"Excellent, because this year is going to be very exciting." Harry's smile widened when she swallowed nervously.
"Why? What's going to be happening at Hogwarts this year?" Rose butted in. "I'm Rose, by the way, Harry's sister."
"Indeed she is. The twins next to her are Violet and Jasmine." Harry introduced continued the introductions. "And the two smaller troublemakers are Paul and David. As you might have noticed, in our family, the girls get cool names while the boys get boring names."
"He's convinced that he's going to be the most powerful wizard to have ever lived and that 'Harry' lacks the required gravitas for it." His mother explained with exasperated fondness. "Keeps telling us that we'll regret giving him such a plebeian name."
The Grangers laughed, not knowing the truth of things.
Hermione's laughter was significantly more strained.
That was when Harry spotted the other target of his observation
The family of blonds was moving through the crowds in much the same way that a scuba diver might move through a school of fish – rubbernecking while everyone got out of their way and stared at the strange organism moving through their midst. It was fortunate that train stations were notorious for the quantity and quality of their weirdoes.
"Hey, Lovegoods!" Harry called out. "Over here!"
A normal family would be nonplussed by the strange boy that they had never interacted with calling out to them as if they were old friends, but not the Lovegoods. They were more fun than that.
"How do you know the Lovegoods?" His father asked, brow furrowed in confusion.
"I don't." Harry did the opposite of explaining.
"Then what…?"
"Hello there!" Xenophilius Lovegood greeted jauntily, smiling in a way that suggested he had no idea what was going on.
"Luna, it's good to see you again." Harry said warmly. "I'm Harry Potter."
"Hello, Harry Potter, it's good to see you for the first time." Luna responded happily.
"How's the family?" He asked.
"Doing great!" She chirped. "Mummy is pregnant again."
Indeed she was. The Lovegood brood was almost as big as the Potter one. All blond, all kooky.
Why was this? Because Harry had snuck into their home back when he was a toddler and enchanted the Lovegood parents' bed with the same thing he had put on his own parents' bed.
Why? Because he knew that Luna's mother got herself killed with a magical experiment when Luna was nine years old. Constantly keeping watch on her to make sure it didn't happen would be silly, so he had ensured she wouldn't have time to do magical experiments.
His parents had no idea of course. They thought that a playpen and monitoring charms would be able to contain him, the fools.
"That's excellent." Harry nodded. "Anyway, I called you here to introduce you to some friends. There's me of course, and there's my sister Rose and my apprentice, Hermone Granger. Girls, this is Luna Lovegood, your new best friend. Not only will she help you hide the bodies, but she'll even help you make them if it comes down to it."
The adults were all extremely confused by this point. Except for the Lovegoods.
"Oh, our little girl is already making friends." Pandora gushed, focusing on the important parts. "Isn't it wonderful, Xeno?"
"Yes, dear." Xenophilius smiled spacily. "Please take good care of our little turnip."
No silly questions or confusion. Lovegoods were the best.
"Of course, that's what friends do." Harry nodded. "Come on, girls. We should board the train."
Preferably before the adults got their wits about them and start asking questions. He wasn't making much effort to hide, but explaining things would still be a chore. Maybe it was time to deploy some extra magical obfuscation?
XXXXX
Minerva McGonagall felt strange sitting behind the headmaster's desk – her desk, now. Albus had always had that timeless air about him that made you think he was going to outlive everyone, no matter how ancient he looked.
Harry Potter had a similar air around him, and it made her feel as if she was the one who had been summoned to the headmaster's office. Which she had, to be fair, even if the 'boy' was the one sitting in front of the desk, while she sat behind it.
"I trust that you have no issue continuing the arrangement Albus and I had, Minerva?" The not-child asked, sipping at his tea.
Minerva held back the shudder that wanted to wrack her frame. There was something incredibly off-putting about seeing such ancient eyes and such a mature demeanor in a child's body. If she could, she would expel him from the castle to keep him away from the actual children, and perhaps especially to keep him away from Hermione Granger.
But it was not to be. Albus was gone now and Voldemort was confirmed to still be out there. The not-child had promised to take care of the 'problem' in exchange for a list of privileges while he was at Hogwarts. The deal was more than fair and he hadn't actually done anything that could be considered unethical.
He was just disturbing to be around.
"Of course, Mr. Potter." She said, keeping her tone as even as possible. "Was there anything else you needed?"
Please get out of my office so I can open the bottle of scotch in my desk.
"I just wanted to warn you that you may wish to start looking for a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." Harry replied politely. "Gilderoy Lockhart is a fraud and a criminal, and I plan to use him as practice to start teaching Hermione about mentally unbalancing people, among other things."
Psychological torture, you mean.
"I will take that under advisement." Minerva's smiled had more akin to a death's head grin. She cursed Albus for going through with that ritual and leaving her behind to deal with this mess.
XXXXX
Harry looked over his loot with a grin.
Ravenclaw's Diadem, Hufflepuff's Cup, Slytherin's Locket, the Gaunt Ring and now at last, Riddle's Diary. All of Voldie's horcruxes were his now.
Well, there was still that one part of old Tommy's soul inside Neville's head, but that could stay there for now.
It hadn't been hard to gather them all, seeing as he knew where they were. Even getting Hufflepuff's Cup out of the Lestrange vault in Gringotts had been a breeze. The goblins might have protected their bank against Apparition, but their protections did diddly squat against Dimension Door.
Now it was time to demonstrate why leaving chunks of your soul out in the wild was a bad idea.
A ritual circle was inscribed around a pentagram, one horcrux sitting on each point. Arcane script ran across the circle, specifying what was to happen. And in the exact middle of the circle stood…
A Mr. Potato Head doll.
Yes, Voldemort would rue the day he mutilated his soul.
The ritual was begun and the inside of the circle howled with hate and pain as the soul fragments were torn out of the horcruxes and drawn into the plastic doll. Though normally invulnerable to anything save a magic-destroying spell or item, a skilled Soul Mage could do terrible things with a horcrux.
Harry had been only a novice Soul Mage the first time around, now he was the most learned one to have ever lived.
The spiritual howling decreased in volume, but in turn the Mr. Potato Head doll started screaming physically. Then the ritual was over, and the horcruxes were horcruxes no more.
The Mr. Potato Head doll stood still and quiet on the ground, but its eyes were no longer blank and lifeless. Instead, they were filled with helpless fury, fear and horror.
"You may speak." Harry allowed.
"What have you done to me?!" Mr. Potatomort immediately demanded. "Who are you?!"
"I am Harry Potter." Harry gave the doll a cruel smile. "As for what I just did… you left all those piece of your soul lying around for anyone to claim, so I did. Then I bound them to that doll you now inhabit."
"Nobody owns Lord Voldemort!" The doll squeaked in outrage.
Harry's cruel smile widened. "Suffer."
Mr. Potatomort shrieked in pain and convulsed on the ground, suffering torments worse than anything even the greatest master of the Cruciatus could inflict.
"Cease." Harry ordered and it immediately stopped. "I trust that establishes the power dynamic between us?"
Mr. Potatomort looked up fearfully, no longer daring to speak.
"Well?" Harry prompted. "I asked you a question."
"Yes." Mr. Potatomort ground out.
"Good." Harry purred in his best Palpatine impression. "A few ground rules to start with. From now on, your name will be… Tom."
Mr. Potatomort's eyes filled with fury and his plastic teeth creaked against each other, but he bowed his head all the same.
"And when I address you, you are to respond with 'what is thy bidding, my master?'."
That proved too much for the fallen Dark Lord's pride and he swelled up in fury. "I WILL NOT-"
"Suffer." Harry interrupted and shook his head as the screaming of the damned resumed. "This one is going to take some conditioning."
XXXXX
Neville Longbottom was the Boy-Who-Lived. That was not a title he really wanted, but it was one that came with certain expectations.
His grandmother had hired the best tutors for him and generally did everything in her power to make certain that he would live up to his parents' sacrifice. So he didn't think it was unreasonable to assume that he would have done well upon coming to Hogwarts, which he had been looking forward to.
To be fair, he was doing well, it was just… Harry Potter.
The other boy did everything better with the kind of effortless ease that would rub anyone wrong. He never seemed to study, never did any homework, only attended class when it suited him and never got in trouble for anything. The prefects couldn't touch him, detentions were ignored and threats of point loss only drew an indulgent smile, as if he was looking at a kitten trying to roar like a lion.
It didn't help that he acted as if the other Gryffindor boys in his year didn't even exist, dismissing them from consideration with the kind of casual indifference that Neville had only seen from the most arrogant of pureblood lords. He didn't even sleep in the Gryffindor dorm, hadn't spent a single night there in fact.
Neville admitted in the privacy of his own thoughts that he felt terribly jealous. He even thought, more than once, that Harry should have been the Boy-Who-Lived. Not only did he seem far better suited for it, but it would also mean that Neville's parents would still be alive. It was a horrible thought, but he couldn't help it.
Of course, he knew to keep such thoughts to himself. Ron Weasley, on the other hand, was not so restrained. The red-headed boy was a friend, as were Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan, but he had a nasty temper and a jealous streak deeper than the Black Lake. It was little wonder, then, that the school year had barely started and Ron was already blowing his top when Harry invited a first year Ravenclaw girl to sit at the Gryffindor table with him.
It wasn't even about the girl herself, Neville knew. Ron just hated Harry Potter's existence and took every excuse to rage about it.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Potter?!" Ron sneered angrily, gesticulating wildly. "Loony's a Ravenclaw, she can't sit here!"
As always, Harry wasn't intimidated at all and simply smiled. "But she is sitting here, therefore she clearly can."
"Ron, stop it! You're embarrassing me!" Ron's younger sister, Ginny, snapped. "It's not a big deal."
"NOT A BIG DEAL!?" Ron's eyes seemed to bulge out of his flushed face in his rage. "NOTHING IS EVER A BIG DEAL WHEN HARRY BLOODY POTTER DOES IT!"
His scream echoed across the Great Hall, silencing all conversation. The teachers, who would normally intervene in such an altercation, sat still and quiet. They never did anything when Harry was involved, and now the only sound was Ron's ragged breathing.
The little blonde girl that Ron had called 'Loony' looked at him with concern. "Are you alright, Ronald? You look angry."
The question left Ron sputtering, too angry to even properly verbalize.
"Why are you yelling at my brother?!" Harry's sister demanded, glaring at Ron. "Just go away!"
"Stay out of this, you little-" Ron yelled back.
"Oi." Harry interrupted. His tone was even, his voice mild, but the heavy weight that pressed down on them all would have probably made a nundu cower. "Watch your tone when you speak to my sister."
Ron went pale so fast that he actually got dizzy and stumbled. A moment later, Percy Weasley was ushering him out of the great hall. The prefect had tried to exert his authority over Harry Potter only once the previous year, and since then pretended that he didn't exist.
For the remainder of breakfast, nobody spoke a word except for Harry and his friends.
Neville wondered if he had ended up being the Boy-Who-Lived because Voldemort was too scared to go after Harry. It wouldn't have surprised him at this point.