Chapter Text
Harry had been standing in the ghostly recreation of Kings Cross Station for a minute, trying to make sense of what the ghost of Albus Dumbledore had said, and wondering if he could actually go back, when a Centaur arrived.
“Harry Potter,” the Centaur said solemnly. This was, of course, the usual way Centaurs spoke. Harry nodded. “You have not returned to the world of the living.”
“No shit? I hadn’t noticed,” Harry said sarcastically. This was his own usual way of speaking, and the Centaur didn’t seem to take offence.
“We cannot return you to when you died, but we must return you,” the Centaur said. “Since your death, it has become… very obvious you are needed. The spells to do this cannot be completed by wizards, but Centaurs, House Elves, Goblins, and... others have powers human wizards cannot fathom. We will return you, and you must be prepared.”
“I mean, if nobody else can fix it,” Harry said with a shrug. “Might as well be me. What do I do?”
“Get on the train,” the Centaur said, waving at the red engine pulling up to the platform. “Time heals many wounds, and as we must wound time to fix what has been broken, you will see it healing around you. Do not question the healing, accept it and move forward, drawing it with you as you travel the streams of Time. Do not tell Wizards of your travel, for they will covet what cannot be theirs. Seek out that which can be fixed, and be assured, everything you have seen, have endured, you endured for a reason. Use the knowledge you have to heal the damage of the past.”
“So, no pressure,” Harry said with a sigh. “Catch you on the flip side.”
***
The train lurched as it sped up after a turn. Harry threw his hand out instinctively to catch himself and stared for a moment at his hand. He’d gotten used to the scar, the one on his right hand that read I Must Not Tell Lies. It had been there for two… three years, now?
The hand he was looking at now was unblemished. Small, a bit out of proportion, but unmarked, unscarred, except for the small, red crescent where Dudley had dug his thumbnail into the web of the thumb and forefinger the day before that first train ride to Hogwarts. The red crescent was still tender.
Okay, so, I’m eleven again , Harry thought. Not so bad. He could redo it, get them on Quirrell’s case from the get go, steal the Sorcerer’s Stone… hmm, during Christmas break. Hide it, defend it, oust Quirrell. Right, that’s a plan.
He stepped out into the center aisle and prepared to go find Ron. Instead he bumped chests with a taller boy, fell, and for a second had the strangest feeling he was looking up at Draco Malfoy, for all that the boy who’d knocked into him had artfully tousled, black hair, not neatly combed white.
“Bit of a bumpy ride, eh?” the boy asked, and held out a hand to help Harry up. “Name’s Potter, Jim Potter.”
Oh. Fuck.
“Um, I’m Harry,” Harry said, casting about for a name that wasn’t also Potter. Somehow he doubted that would go over well, even if it was a fairly common name out in the Muggle world. “Dursley. Harry Dursley.”
WHY THE FUCK DID I SAY THAT?
“Nice to meet you, Dursley,” James… Jim… Harry’s Dad said.
“Please just call me Harry, I um… I don’t get on well with my… with the Dursleys.”
James made a sad face. “It’s okay. Sirius here doesn’t like his either.”
“Black sheep have to stick together,” Sirius said, and Harry blinked. He knew everyone had regrettable haircuts in their past, but he hadn’t expected to ever see his Godfather with a bowl cut. The smirk was familiar though. Almost annoyingly familiar. Oh gods, this was the time when they were all utter prats still, wasn’t it? He was going to have to stop them from being murderous prats, wasn’t he? Internally, Harry sighed.
Externally, he’d frozen up and the two future Marauders had taken that as consent to bundle him off with them into a sitting cab. They were chatting about spells they wanted to learn and Quidditch and James was solicitously explaining bits to Harry, although not enough at any given time to help someone who really didn’t know about the sport. Harry wondered why he was explaining, but another glance down at his body answered that. He was in the same outfit he’d worn the first time around. A threadbare sweatshirt, inherited jeans from Dudley that had started baggy but at this point were on the edge of too small, and formerly-white trainers. Not wizarding clothes. He looked like the Muggleborn he was raised as.
A girl stuck her head in the car. Harry drew an awkward breath and froze, again. Beside him, James started coughing like he’d swallowed his tongue.
Her eyes, exactly like those in the mirror, locked onto Harry’s. There was a long moment, and then she smiled.
“Room for two more in here?”
“Yep,” Harry said. “I’m Harry, this is James, and Sirius. Although from what I can tell, he isn’t.”
Sirius gave him a confused look before blinking. “Huh. That’s almost a new one. Normally I get jokes about the Dog Star.”
“Thanks, I’ll be here all week, don’t forget to tip the waitress,” Harry said and Lily laughed as she introduced herself and her friend, Severus.
The ride was awkward at first. James and Sirius were the most outgoing, shortly followed by Lily, but Harry didn’t need to hear about last year’s Quidditch season, and Severus seemed to deeply not care, and that was all the boys wanted to talk about.
“So, what subjects are you looking forward to?” he asked.
“Hmm, Charms sounds fun,” Lily said. “Mr. Olivander said my wand would be good for Charms. What about you?”
Harry suddenly felt a stab of panic. His own wand was damaged, and he’d dropped Draco’s wand when he went to the forest to die. Hopefully, the magic that sent him here would have also restored his wand, like it did his unblemished right hand.
“Defense,” Harry squeaked out, realizing he’d left the answer to hang too long.
“Got delusions of glory?” Sirius asked. Harry rolled his eyes.
“Got a basic grasp of history,” Harry countered. “I have no desire to be ripped to shreds by a blood supremacist, and I’d like to know how to protect myself and others.”
Sirius blanched and Harry almost winced. He’d managed to forget that HIS Sirius was an adult, one with trauma, but one who knew his family wasn’t a reflection of his self. One who had already done the hard work of pulling free of the Black attitudes. THIS Sirius was still a child, still forming his opinions about the whole issue, and reminding him that several of his relatives would be perfectly fine killing his new friends… wasn’t the most tactful.
Meanwhile, Lily was giving him a worried look. Great, he’d gone and worried everyone. Harry shrugged, and turned to look out the window.
***
“Want anything from the trolley, dear?” asked the witch pushing the trolley. Harry could almost swear she was the same woman who worked this job in his own time, but her face was softer, lighter, even beyond having fewer wrinkles.
“Um.” He patted his pockets absently. “No thanks.”
“My treat,” Sirius said.
“Okay. Pumpkin pasty, then, please.”
“You two?” Sirius asked Lily and Severus. Young Snape made a strange face, confused and suspicious, but Lily smiled and nodded.
“What he’s having then,” she said. “One each, if that’s all right.”
“Sure,” Sirius said, and passed coins to the witch who distributed the pasties.
Harry liked pumpkin pasties for their filling nature, they were a fast and cheap way to stave off hunger. From the way Severus tucked in, he wasn’t the only one who used them like that. Food softened the generally awkward air of the cab, and eventually they started having a proper conversation about what Hogwarts was going to be like.
“Mm, the stairs move, by the way,” he told Lily. “Actually relocating, not just the steps going like escalators. You’ve got to watch out for that, although there is a pattern to it, so once you know that it can be faster to get from place to place.”
“How’d you know that?” James asked.
“I read about it in Hogwarts, A History,” Harry said, and mentally thanked Hermione.
“Never read it, is it any good?” James asked.
“Kinda boring, but it had some things that seemed useful,” Harry said. “Like, you can’t apparate or disapparate onto or off of school grounds, you have to go into Hogsmeade to do that. I know we won’t learn that for a while yet, but it’s still good to know.”
“Bit of a nerd, aren’t you, Dursley?” James asked.
Harry set his face in a deeply unimpressed stare. He let it get awkward, then twitched his brow up. “It may be different, growing up in it, but I’m still rather excited to be going to a Magic. School. We read books about magic, you know. Whole big series of fantasy stories about wizards and fairies and elves and such. Muggles don’t lack magic for want of wanting, you know. Forgive me if I want to know everything.”
James blushed, and Harry excused himself to visit the washroom.
Safely behind closed doors, he buried his face in his hands and gave a muffled scream between gritted teeth. He was going to need to get the materials for a calming draught as soon as he could, or he was going to kill his own father before he was born.